Dana, Sr., Richard Henry

RICHARD HENRY DANA, SR.

Image

American Writer, Critic, Poet, and Lawyer

Attribution
Image Courtesy Rufus Wilmont Griswold. The Poets and Poetry of America, 16th Edition, Parry and McMillan, 1855.  

Source Google Books http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RHDanaSr.jpg

Dates and Places of Birth and Death

BORN:  Nov. 15, 1787  Cambridge, Massachusetts

DIED:    Feb.  2,  1879  Cambridge, Massachusetts

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COME, Brother turn with me from pining

          thought

And all the inward ills that sin has wrought ;

Come, send abroad a love for all who live,

And feel the deep content in turn they give.

Kind wishes and good deeds, they make not
          poor ;

They'll home again, full laden, to thy door ;

The streams of love flow back where they begin,

For springs of outward joys lie deep within.

    Even let them flow, and make the places glad

Where dwell thy fellow-men. Shouldst thou be sad,

And earth seem bare, and hours, once happy, press

Upon thy thoughts, and make thy loneliness

More lonely for the past, thou then shalt hear,

The music of those waters running near ;

And thy faint spirit drink the cooling stream,

And thine eye gladden with the playing beam

That now upon the water dances, now

Leaps up and dances in the hanging bough.

    Is it not lovely ?   Tell me, where doth dwell

The power that wrought so beautiful a spell ?

In thine own bosom, Brother ?    Then as thine

Guard with a reverent fear this power divine.

    And if, indeed, 't is not the outward state,

But temper of the soul by which we rate

Sadness or joy, even let thy bosom move

With noble thoughts and wake thee into love,

And let each feeling in thy breast be given

An honest aim, which, sanctified by Heaven,

And springing into act, new life imparts,

Till beats thy frame as with a thousand hearts.

    Sin clouds the mind's clear vision,

Around the self-starved soul has spread a dearth.

The earth is full of life ; the living Hand

Touched it with life ; and all its forms expand

With principles of being made to suit

Man's varied powers and raise him from the brute.
And shall the earth of higher ends be full,
Earth which thou tread'st, and thy poor mind
          be dull ?
Thou talk of life, with half thy soul asleep ?
Thou "living dead man," let thy spirit leap
Forth to the day, and let the fresh air blow
Through thy soul's shut-up mansion.   Wouldst
          thou know
Something of what is life, shake off this death ;
Have thy soul feel the universal breath

With which all nature's quick, and learn to be

Sharer in all that thou dost touch or see ;

Break from thy body's grasp, thy spirit's trance ;

Give thy soul air, thy faculties expanse ;
Love, joy, even sorrow, yield thyself to all !
They make thy freedom, groveller, not thy thrall.
Knock off the shackles which thy spirit bind
To dust and sense, and set at large the mind !
Then move in sympathy with God's great whole,
And be like man at first, a LIVING SOUL.
                                                   RICHARD HENRY DANA.

Dickens, Charles

CHARLES DICKENS

Sketch

English Writer

Attributions

Sketch Copy of Charles Dickens, 1842

Source

Own Work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Dickens_s1_1_cd.jpg

Date and Places of Birth and Death

BORN:  Feb. 7, 1812

DIED:   June  9, 1870

____________________

THE IVY GREEN.

O, A DAINTY plant is the ivy green,

   That creepeth o'er ruins old !

Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,

   In his cell so lone and cold.

The walls must be crumbled, the stones, decayed,

   To pleasure his dainty whim ;

And the mouldering dust that years have made

   Is a merry meal for him.

         Creeping where no life is seen, 

         A rare old plant is the ivy green.

Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,

   And a stanch old heart has he !

How closely he twineth, how tight he clings

   To his friend, the huge oak-tree !

And slyly he traileth along the ground,

   And his leaves he gently waves,

And he joyously twines and hugs around

   The rich mould of dead men's graves.

         Creeping where no life is seen,

         A rare old plant is the ivy green.  

Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed,

   And nations scattered been ;

But the stout old ivy shall never fade

   From its hale and hearty green.

The brave old plant in its lonely days

   Shall fatten upon the past ;

For the stateliest building man can raise

   Is the ivy's food at last.

         Creeping where no life is seen,

         A rare old plant is the ivy green.

CHARLES DICKENS

Mary, Queen of Hungary

MARY, QUEEN OF HUNGARY
Wife of King Louis II

Portrait

Queen Consort of Hungary and Bohemia, 1515 - 1526

Attributions

Portrait by Hans Maler Schwaz, circa 1520

Source
https://www.altesses.eu/max.php?image=c4e7601d38

Dates and Places of Birth and Death

BORN:  Sept. 15, 1505  Brussels, Belgium

DIED:    Oct.   18, 1558  Cigales, Spain

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PRAYER BY MARY, QUEEN OF HUNGARY.

                    [Translation]

O GOD ! though sorrow be my fate, 

And the world's hate

      For my heart's faith pursue me,

My peace they cannot take away ;

From day to day

      Thou dost anew imbue me ;

Thou art not far ; a little while

Thou hid'st thy face with brighter smile

      Thy father-love to show me.

Lord, not my will, but thine, be done ;

If I sink down

      When men to terrors leave me,

Thy father-love still warms my breast,

All's for the best ;

      Shall man have power to grieve me

When bliss eternal is my goal,

And thou the keeper of my soul,

Who never will deceive me ?

Thou art my shield, as saith the Word.

Christ Jesus, Lord,

      Thou standest pitying by me,

And lookest on each grief of mine

As if 't were thine :

      What then though foes may try me,

Though thorns be in my path concealed ?

World, do thy worst ! God is my shield !

      And will be ever nigh me.

MARY, QUEEN OF HUNGARY

Moore, Thomas

THOMAS MOORE

Painting

Irish Poet

Attributions

Enamel on Copper Painting by Thomas Lawrence, 19th century

Source

Christie's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Moore,_after_Thomas_Lawrence.jpg

Dates and Places of Birth and Death

BORN:  May 28,  1779  Dublin, Ireland

DIED:    Feb. 25, 1852  Sloperton Cottage, Bromham, Wiltshire, England

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THE BIRD LET LOOSE.

THE bird let loose in eastern skies,

    When hastening fondly home,

Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies

    Where idle warblers roam ;

But high she shoots through air and light,

    Above all low delay,

Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,

    Nor shadow dims her way.

So grant me, God, from every care

    And stain of passion free,

Aloft, through Virtue's purer air,

    To hold my course to thee !

No sin to cloud, no lure to stay

    My soul, as home she springs ;

Thy sunshine on her joyful way,

    Thy freedom in her wings !

                                           THOMAS MOORE.

THOU ART, O GOD

"The day is thine, the night also is thine : thou hast prepared the light and the sun.  Thou hast set all the borders of the earth : thou hast made summer and winter." -PSALM LXXIV. 16, 17.

THOU art, O God, the life and light

    Of all this wondrous world we see ;

Its glow by day, its smile by night,

    Are but reflections caught from thee.

Where'er we turn thy glories shine,

And all things fair and bright are thine !

When day, with farewell beam, delays

    Among the opening clouds of even,

And we can almost think we gaze

    Through golden vistas into heaven,

Those hues that make the sun's decline

So soft, so radiant, Lord ! are thine.

When night, with wings of starry gloom,

    O'ershadows all the earth and skies,

Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume

    Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes,

That sacred gloom, those fires divine,

So grand, so countless, Lord ! are thine.

When youthful spring around us breathes,

    Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sight ;

And every flower the summer wreathes

    Is born beneath that kindling eye.

Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,

And all things fair and bright are thine !

                                              THOMAS MOORE

Rossetti, Christina G.

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI

Portrait

English Poet

Attributions

Chalk Portrait by Dante Gabrielo Rossetti, 1866 (Brother of Christina)

Source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Christina_Rossetti_2.jpg

Dates and Places of Birth and Death

BORN:   December   5, 1830  London, England
DIED:     December 29, 1894  London, England

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UP HILL.

DOES the road wind up hill all the way ?

      Yes, to the very end.

Will the day's journey take the whole long day ?

      From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place ?

A roof for when the slow dark hours begin ?

May not the darkness hide it from my face ?

      You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night ?

      Those who have gone before.

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight ?

      They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak ?

      Of labor you shall find the sum.

Will there be beds for me and all who seek ?

      Yea, beds for all who come

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

. 

Wordsworth, William

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Portrait

Britain's  Poet Laureate from 1842 -1850

Attributions

Oil on canvas portrait by Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1842

Bequeathed by John Fisher Wordsworth, 1920
Source 
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/largerimage.php?search=ap&npgno=1857
National Portrait Gallery

Dates and Places of Birth and Death

BORN:  April   7, 1770  Wordsworth House, Cockermouth

DIED:    April 23, 1850  Cumberland, United Kingdom

____________________

DAFFODILS.

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay :
Ten thousand saw I, at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee ;
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company ;
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude ;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.