“You know the rest. In the books you have readHow the British Regulars fired and fled,---How the farmers gave them ball for ball,From behind each fence and farmyard wall,Chasing the redcoats down the lane,Then crossing the fields to emerge againUnder the trees at the turn of the road,And only pausing to fire and load.So through the night rode Paul Revere;And so through the night went his cry of alarmTo every Middlesex village and farm,---A cry of defiance, and not of fear,A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,And a word that shall echo for evermore!For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,Through all our history, to the last,In the hour of darkness and peril and need,The people will waken and listen to hearThe hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”

“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.”

“I feel a kind of reverence for the first books of young authors.There is so much aspiration in them,so much audacious hope and trembling fear,so much of the heart's history, that all errorsand shortcomings are for a while lost sight ofin the amiable self assertion of youth.”

“The Rainy DayThe day is cold, and dark, and dreary;It rains, and the wind is never weary;The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,But at every gust the dead leaves fall,And the day is dark and dreary.My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;It rains, and the wind is never weary;My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,And the days are dark and dreary.Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;Thy fate is the common fate of all,Into each life some rain must fall,Some days must be dark and dreary.”

“The Children's HourBetween the dark and the daylight,When the night is beginning to lower,Comes a pause in the day's occupations,That is known as the Children's Hour.I hear in the chamber above meThe patter of little feet,The sound of a door that is opened,And voices soft and sweet.From my study I see in the lamplight,Descending the broad hall stair,Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,And Edith with golden hair.A whisper, and then a silence:Yet I know by their merry eyesThey are plotting and planning togetherTo take me by surprise.A sudden rush from the stairway,A sudden raid from the hall!By three doors left unguardedThey enter my castle wall!They climb up into my turretO'er the arms and back of my chair;If I try to escape, they surround me;They seem to be everywhere.They almost devour me with kisses,Their arms about me entwine,Till I think of the Bishop of BingenIn his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,Because you have scaled the wall,Such an old mustache as I amIs not a match for you all!I have you fast in my fortress,And will not let you depart,But put you down into the dungeonIn the round-tower of my heart.And there will I keep you forever,Yes, forever and a day,Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,And moulder in dust away!”

“Look, then, into thine heart, and write!Yes, into Life's deep stream!All forms of sorrow and delight,All solemn Voices of the Night,That can soothe thee, or affright, -Be these henceforth thy theme.(excerpt from "Voices of the Night")”

“The Day is DoneThe day is done, and the darknessFalls from the wings of Night,As a feather is wafted downwardFrom an eagle in his flight.I see the lights of the villageGleam through the rain and the mist,And a feeling of sadness comes o'er meThat my soul cannot resist:A feeling of sadness and longing,That is not akin to pain,And resembles sorrow onlyAs the mist resembles the rain.Come, read to me some poem,Some simple and heartfelt lay,That shall soothe this restless feeling,And banish the thoughts of day.Not from the grand old masters,Not from the bards sublime,Whose distant footsteps echoThrough the corridors of Time.For, like strains of martial music,Their mighty thoughts suggestLife's endless toil and endeavor;And to-night I long for rest.Read from some humbler poet,Whose songs gushed from his heart,As showers from the clouds of summer,Or tears from the eyelids start;Who, through long days of labor,And nights devoid of ease,Still heard in his soul the musicOf wonderful melodies.Such songs have power to quietThe restless pulse of care,And come like the benedictionThat follows after prayer.Then read from the treasured volumeThe poem of thy choice,And lend to the rhyme of the poetThe beauty of thy voice.And the night shall be filled with music,And the cares, that infest the day,Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,And as silently steal away.”