Let The Dead Past Bury Its Dead!

Look At This Vigorous Plant That Lifts Its Head From The Meadow, See How Its Leaves Are Turned To The North, As True As The Magnet; This Is The Compass-flower, That The Finger Of God Has Planted Here In The Houseless Wild, To Direct The Traveller's Journey. Over The Sea-like, Pathless, Limitless Waste Of The Desert, Such In The Soul Of Man Is Faith.

Where Should The Scholar Live? In Solitude, Or In Society? In The Green Stillness Of The Country, Where He Can Hear The Heart Of Nature Beat, Or In The Dark, Gray Town Where He Can Hear And Feel The Throbbing Heart Of Man?

O, Though Oft Oppressed And Lonely, All My Fears Are Laid Aside, If I But Remember Only Such As These Have Lived And Died!

But The Great Master Said, "i See No Best In Kind, But In Degree; I Gave A Various Gift To Each, To Charm, To Strengthen, And To Teach".

Perhaps The Chief Cause Which Has Retarded The Progress Of Poetry In America, Is The Want Of That Exclusive Cultivation, Which So Noble A Branch Of Literature Would Seem To Require. Few Here Think Of Relying Upon The Exertion Of Poetic Talent For A Livelihood, And Of Making Literature The Profession Of Life. The Bar Or The Pulpit Claims The Greater Part Of The Scholar's Existence, And Poetry Is Made Its Pastime.