Life Hangs As Nothing In The Scale

A Tattered Copy Of Johnson's Large Dictionary Was A Great Delight To Me, On Account Of The Specimens Of English Versifications Which I Found In The Introduction. I Learned Them As If They Were So Many Poems. I Used To Keep This Old Volume Close To My Pillow; And I Amused Myself When I Awoke In The Morning By Reciting Its Jingling Contrasts Of Iambic And Trochaic And Dactylic Metre, And Thinking What A Charming Occupation It Must Be To "make Up" Verses.

I Remember How Beautiful The Merrimac Looked To Me In Childhood, The First True River I Ever Knew; It Opened Upon My Sight And Wound Its Way Through My Heart Like A Dream Realized; Its Harebells, Its Rocks, And Its Rapids, Are Far More Fixed In My Memory Than Anything About The Sea.

To Different Minds, Poetry May Present Different Phases. To Me, The Reverent Faith Of The People I Lived Among, And Their Faithful Everyday Living, Was Poetry; Blossoms And Trees And Blue Shies Were Poetry. God Himself Was Poetry.

No One Can Feel More Gratefully The Charm Of Noble Scenery, Or The Refreshment Of Escape Into The Unspoiled Solitudes Of Nature, Than The Laborer At Some Close In-door Employment.

If The World 's A Vale Of Tears, Smile, Till Rainbows Span It!