John Whittier Quotations

Unknown to her the rigid rule, the dull restraint, the chiding frown, the weary torture of the school, the taming of wild nature down.

Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,/ But spare your country's flag,' she said./ A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,/ Over the face of the leader came.

She blended in a like degree The vixen and the devotee

Of all that Orient lands can vaunt, of marvels with our own competing, the strangest is the Haschish plant, and what will follow on its eating.

Of all sad words of tongue and pen the saddest are these, what might have been.

Nothing before, nothing behind; the steps of faith fall on the seeming void and find the rock beneath

But, by all thy nature's weakness, Hidden faults and follies known, Be thou, in rebuking evil, Conscious of thine own.

If woman lost us Eden, such as she alone can restore it

We meet todayTo thank Thee for the era done,And Thee for the opening one

O Time and change! -- with hair as gray as was my sire's that winter day, how strange it seems, with so much gone of life and love, to still live on!

Somehow, not only for Christmas but all the long year through, The joy that you give to others Is the joy that comes back to you. And the more you spend in blessing The poor and lonely and sad, The more of your heart's possessing Returns to you glad.

The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'

For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are those 'It might have been.'

No longer forward nor behind, I look in hope or fear; But grateful take the good I find, The best of now and here.

No lance have I, in joust or fight, To splinter in my lady's sight; But, at her feet, how blest were I For any need of hers to die!

How dwarfed against his manliness she sees the poor pretension, the wants, the aims, the follies, born of fashion and convention!

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ''It might have been!''

For somehow, not only at Christmas, but all the long year through, The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you.

Ah, that I were free again! Free as when I rode that day, Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay

Ah, that I were free again! Free as when I rode that day, Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay

And a nameless longing filled her breast, - A wish, that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known