Poets From The United States

"If you chance to live in a town where the authorities cannot rest until they have destroyed every precious tree within their blighting reach, you will be especially charmed by the beauty of the streets of Portsmouth. In some parts of the town, when the chestnuts are in blossom, you would fancy yourself in a garden in fairyland."

"My father invested his money so securely in the banking business that he was never able to get any of it out again."

"When Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789 he was not much impressed by the architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly in the struggle for independence."

"Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value of corner lots. If it is a possible thing, they always set themselves down on the most desirable spot."

"Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays.[…] The grim cannon have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into peach blossoms."

"The fate of the worm refutes the pretended ethical teaching of the proverb which assumes to illustrate the advantage of early rising and does so by showing how extremely dangerous it is."

"It is only your habitual late riser who takes in the full flavor of Nature at those rare intervals when he gets up to go a-fishing. He brings virginal emotions and unsatiated eyes to the sparkling freshness of earth and stream and sky."

"The ring of a false coin is not more recognizable than that of a rhyme setting forth a simulated sorrow."

"My dear Mr. Morse: It was very pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its novelty. One can say to one's self every morning: "There's that letter of Morse's. I haven't read it yet. I think I'll take another shy at it to-day, and maybe I shall be able in the course of a few years to make out what he means by those t's that look like w's and those i's that haven't any eyebrows." Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but yours are kept forever—unread. One of them will last a reasonable man a lifetime."

"We weep when we are born, not when we die!"

"What is more cheerful, now, in the fall of the year, than an open-wood-fire? Do you hear those little chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood? Those are the ghosts of the robins and blue-birds that sang upon the bough when it was in blossom last Spring. In Summer whole flocks of them come fluttering about the fruit-trees under the window: so I have singing birds all the year round."

"The ability to secure your own way and yet impress others with the idea that they are having their own way is rare among men; in women it is as common as eyebrows."

"In her eyes a thought Grew sweet and sweeter, deepening like the dawn— A mystical forewarning!"

"Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust. Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living."

"In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young. When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty."

"… trace Ullman’s American journey chronologically, first as a young man assisting his father in a grocery business in Port Gibson, then as a soldier for the Confederacy. Ullman survived injuries he suffered during the Civil War, returned to Port Gibson, and soon moved to the larger city of Natchez, where he established a business, entered the civic and religious life of the community, and married and began a family. Ullman was respected and rewarded for his service to the community, particularly during periods when deadly "fevers" moved up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Natchez. As many abandoned the unhealthy city, Ullman remained to run his and others’ businesses, to provide religious services for the temple congregation, and to serve as a civic leader. Ullman was elected a city alderman and was appointed to the city’s board of education. The black, as well as the white, community found him always impartial and fair, a rare attitude for that time and community. Seeking improved economic circumstances for his family, Ullman moved to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1884. In this New South city, he established a hardware store, joined a small Reform congregation, and was immediately placed on Birmingham’s board of education. As chairman of the board, he gave critical support for creation of a high school for blacks in the city, one of the few such schools anywhere in the South at that time. Ullman’s energy and charisma also won him a place on the city’s board of aldermen and a lengthy term as president of Temple Emanu-El. During a particularly tumultuous time for the temple, Ullman was asked to become the congregation’s rabbi, a rare if not unprecedented act in American Judaism. Ullman also served on local and state commissions that sought to reform economic and political processes within the state. … His poetic essay "Youth" inspired vision and confidence in [Japan] after World War II … [and] entered the psyche and culture of America."

"Don't waste the breath to save your face, When you have done your best, And even more is asked of you, Let fate decide the rest."

"But never give your love, my friend, Unto a foolish heart"

"There are times when you get hit upon, Try hard but you cannot give. Other times you'd gladly part, With what you need to live"

"While you were gone, these spaces filled with darkness. The obvious was hidden. With nothing to believe in. The compass always points to Terrapin."

"Ain't nobody messin' with you but you"

"Inspiration, move me brightly, light the song with sense and color, hold away despair"

"There are things you can replace, and others you cannot. The time has come to weigh those things, this space is getting hot."

"I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels, but I would slave to learn the way, to sink your ship of fools."

"In another time's forgotten space, your eyes looked through your mother's face, Wildflower seed on the sand and stone, may the four winds blow you safely home. Roll away ... the dew"

"Once in a while, you get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if you look at it right."

"Sometimes we live no particular way but our own"

"I like your smile but I ain't your type, Don't shake the tree when the fruit ain't ripe"

"Crippled but free, I was blind all the time I was learning to see."

"Sometimes the light's all shining on me, Other times I can barely see, Lately it occurs to me, What a long strange trip it's been..."

"It seems like all this life was just a dream"

"In the secret space of dreams, Where I dreaming lay amazed, When the secrets all are told, And the petals all unfold. When there was no dream of mine, You dreamed of me"

"Let my inspiration flow, in token lines suggesting rhythm, that will not forsake me, till my tale is told and done"

"Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be here."

"Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world, but the heart has its beaches, its homeland, and thoughts of its own. Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings, but the heart has its seasons its evenings, and songs of its own"

"There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night. And if you go, no one may follow. That path is for your steps alone."

"You who choose to lead must follow, But if you fall, you fall alone, If you should stand then who's to guide you? If I knew the way I would take you home"

"Trouble with you is The trouble with me Got two good eyes But you still don't see Come round the bend You know it's the end The fireman screams and The engine just gleams"

"Trouble ahead, Trouble behind, and you know that notion just crossed my mind"

"Trouble ahead. A lady in red. Take my advice. You'd be better off dead!"

"Let there be songs to fill the air."

"Nothing's for certain, It could always go wrong, Come in when it's raining, Go on out when it's gone, We could have us a high time, Living the good life, Well I know"

"Lovers come and go, the river roll, roll, roll."

"The storyteller makes no choice, soon you will not hear his voice, his job is to shed light, and not to master"

"See here how everything leads up to this day. And it's just like any other day that's ever been. Sun going up and then, the sun, it going down. Shine through my window, and my friends they come around."

"Oh no well I / been there before / and I ain't a comin back around / there no more / no I'm not"

"Shall we go, you and I, while we can? Through... the transitive nightfall of diamonds"

"Learn how to heal yourself and stop fucking with them hospitals"

"Back in the day they stole our smile, so we clothe our teeth in gold."

"Hip-Hop's last hope like Obi-Wan Kenobi Through your television I'm shining light like a train Comin out like earthworms when it rains, bringing it like the C.I.A. be bringing in crack cocaine bailing out of planes with the George Bush connections, I push Reflection like I'm selling izm, like a dealer building the system Supply and the demand it's all just capitalism Niggaz don't sell crack cause they like to see blacks smoke Niggaz sell crack cause they broke"