Dictionary Poems

WHY art thou silent! Is thy love a plant ; ; ;Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air ; ; ;Of absence withers what was once so fair? Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant– ; ; ;Bound to thy service with unceasing … Continued

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Discuss Henry David Thoreau

To those who’ve fail’d, in aspiration vast,To unnam’d soldiers fallen in front on the lead,To calm, devoted engineers–to over-ardent travelers–to pilots on their ships,To many a lofty song and picture without recognition–I’d rear laurel-cover’d monument,High, high above the rest–To all cut off before their time,Possess’d by some strange spirit of fire,Quench’d by an early death. … Continued

There is a word Which bears a sword Can pierce an armed man.It hurls its barbed syllables,– At once is mute again.But where it fellThe saved will tell On patriotic day,Some epauletted brother Gave his breath away. Wherever runs the breathless sun, Wherever roams the day,There is its noiseless onset, There is its victory! Behold … Continued

Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared. Discuss Nathaniel Hawthorne

Time has laid his healing hand upon the wound when we can look back upon the pain we once fainted under and no bitterness or despair rises in our hearts. Jerome K. Jerome

Appeal, v.t.: In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw. Discuss Ambrose Bierce

Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend? How his letters, written in the period of love and confidence, sicken and rebuke you! What a dreary mourning it is to dwell upon those vehement protests of dead affection! William Makepeace Thackeray

‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said.Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold,I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stackOf his own work,–speechless with … Continued

Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers, and of love for our posterity. Discuss John Quincy Adams