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I leave it behind with the games of youth:"
As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burs;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;
Over me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and of deity;

Again I saw, again I heard,

The rolling river, the morning bird;
Beauty through my senses stole;

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

SELF-DEPENDENCE

Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.

And a look of passionate desire

O'er the sea and to the stars I send:

"Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me, Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!

"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, On my heart your mighty charm renew;

Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,

Feel my soul becoming vast like you!"

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, Over the lit sea's unquiet way,

In the rustling night-air came the answer:
"Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they.
"Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,

These demand not that the things without them
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

"And with joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll;
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.

"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God's other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see."

O air-born voice! long since, severely clear,
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear:
"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery!"

-Matthew Arnold.

THE LAST WORD

Creep into thy narrow bed,
Creep, and let no more be said.
Vain thy onset: all stands fast.
Thou thyself must break at last.

Let the long contention cease!
Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
Let them have it how they will!
Thou art tired: best be still.

They out-talk'd thee, hiss'd thee, tore thee?
Better men fared thus before thee;
Fired their ringing shot, and pass'd;
Hotly charg'd, and sank at last.

Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
Let the victors, when they come,

When the forts of folly fall,

Find thy body by the wall!

-Matthew Arnold

ANNE RUTLEDGE

Out of me unworthy and unknown

The vibrations of deathless music;

“With malice toward none, with charity for all." Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a nation

Shining with justice and truth.

I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds,
Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,

Wedded to him, not through union,

But through separation.

Bloom forever, O Republic,

From the dust of my bosom!

- Edgar Lee Masters

LUCINDA MATLOCK

I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.

One time we changed partners,

Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,

And then I found Davis.

We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost

Ere I had reached the age of sixty.

I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,

I made the garden, and for holiday

Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,

And many a flower and medicinal weed

Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys. At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,

And passed to a sweet repose.

What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,

Life is too strong for you

It takes life to love Life.

- Edgar Lee Masters

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods there be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this space of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my

soul.

- William Ernest Henley

REQUIEM

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie;
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

ULYSSES

· Robert Louis Stevenson

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an agèd wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd

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