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We Knew It Would Rain, For The Poplars Showed The White Of Their Leaves, The Amber Grain Shrunk In The Wind,-and The Lightning Now Is Tangled In Tremulous Skeins Of Rain.

-Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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We Knew It Would

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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We Knew It Would Rain, For The Poplars Showed The White Of Their Leaves, The Amber Grain Shrunk In The Wind,-and The Lightning Now Is Tangled In Tremulous Skeins Of Rain.

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The Young Girl In My Story Is To Be As Sensitive To Praise As A Prism Is To Light. Whenever Anybody Praises Her She Breaks Into Colors.

O Liberty, White Goddess! Is It Well To Leave The Gates Unguarded? On Thy Breast Fold Sorrow's Children, Soothe The Hurts Of Fate, Lift The Down-trodden, But With Hand Of Steel Stay Those Who To Thy Sacred Portals Come To Waste The Gifts Of Freedom.

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Great Thoughts In Crude, Unshapely Verse Set Forth Lose Half Their Preciousness, And Ever Must, Unless The Diamond With Its Own Rich Dust Be Cut And Polished, It Seems Little Worth.

Books That Have Become Classics - Books That Have Had Their Day And Now Get More Praise Than Perusal - Always Remind Me Of Retired Colonels And Majors And Captains Who, Having Reached The Age Limit, Find Themselves Retired On Half Pay.

That Was Indeed To Live -- At One Bold Swoop To Wrest From Darkling Death The Best That Death To Life Can Give.

I Like Not Lady-slippers, Nor Yet The Sweet-pea Blossoms, Nor Yet The Flaky Roses, Red Or White As Snow; I Like The Chaliced Lilies, The Heavy Eastern Lilies, The Gorgeous Tiger-lilies, That In Our Garden Grow.

The Possession Of Gold Has Ruined Fewer Men Than The Lack Of It. What Noble Enterprises Have Been Checked And What Fine Souls Have Been Blighted In The Gloom Of Poverty The World Will Never Know.

The Ability To Have Our Own Way, And At The Same Time Convince Others They Are Having Their Own Way, Is A Rare Thing Among Men. Among Women It Is As Common As Eyebrows.

A Man Is Known By The Company His Mind Keeps.

What Is Lovely Never Dies, But Passes Into Other Loveliness, Star-dust, Or Sea-foam, Flower Or Winged Air.

The Man Who Suspects His Own Tediousness Is Yet To Be Born.

No Bird Has Ever Uttered Note That Was Not In Some First Bird's Throat; Since Eden's Freshness And Man's Fall No Rose Has Been Original.

Gracious To All, To None Subservient, Without Offense He Spoke The Word He Meant

October Turned My Maple's Leaves To Gold; The Most Are Gone Now; Here And There One Lingers: Soon These Will Slip From The Twigs' Weak Hold, Like Coins Between A Dying Miser's Fingers.

This One Sits Shivering In Fortune's Smile, Taking His Joy With Bated, Doubtful Breath. This Other, Gnawed By Hunger, All The While Laughs In The Teeth Of Death.

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 Afishing. He Brings Virginal Emotions And Unsatiated Eyes To The Sparkling Freshness Of Earth And Stream And Sky.

The Fanatic Has The Courage Of His Conviction And The Intolerance Of His Courage. He Is Opposed To The Death Penalty For Murder, But He Would Willingly Have Anyone Electrocuted Who Disagreed With Him On The Subject.

O Liberty...! Is It Well To Leave The Gates Unguarded?

But I, In The Chilling Twilight Stand And Wait At The Portcullis, At Thy Castle Gate, Longing To See The Charmed Door Of Dreams Turn On Its Noiseless Hinges, Delicate Sleep!

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.

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We Weep When We Are Born, Not When We Die!

After A Debauch Of Thunder-shower, The Weather Takes The Pledge And Signs It With A Rainbow.

Day Is A Snow-white Dove Of Heaven That From The East Glad Message Brings. Night Is A Stealthy, Evil Raven, Wrapped To The Eyes In His Black Wings.

How Fugitive And Brief Is Mortal Life Between The Budding And The Falling Leaf.

Turn On Its Noiseless Hinges, Delicate Sleep!

It Was 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. 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.

O Harp Of Life, So Speedily Unstrung!

The Walking Delegates Of A Higher Civilization, Who Have Nothing To Divide, Look Upon The Notion Of Property As A Purely Artificial Creation Of Human Society. According To These Advanced Philosophers, The Time Will Come When No Man Shall Be Allowed To Call Anything His. The Beneficent Law Which Takes Away An Author's Rights In His Own Books Just At The Period When Old Age Is Creeping Upon Him Seems To Me A Handsome Stride Toward The Longed-for Millennium.

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When Friends Are At Your Hearthside Met, Sweet Courtesy Has Done Its Most If You Have Made Each Guest Forget That He Himself Is Not The Host.

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Come Watch With Me The Shaft Of Fire That Glows In Yonder West; The Fair, Frail Palaces, The Fading Alps And Archipelagoes And Great Cloud Continents Of Sunset-seas.

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My Mind Lets Go A Thousand Things, Like Dates Of Wars And Deaths Of Kings

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To Keep The Heart Unwrinkled, To Be Hopeful, Kindly, Cheerful, Reverent That Is To Triumph Over Old Age.

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Black Tragedy Lets Slip Her Grim Disguise And Shows You Laughing Lips And Roguish Eyes; But When, Unmasked, Gay Comedy Appears, How Wan Her Cheeks Are, And What Heavy Tears!

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We Knew It Would Rain, For The Poplars Showed The White Of Their Leaves, The Amber Grain Shrunk In The Wind,-and The Lightning Now Is Tangled In Tremulous Skeins Of Rain.

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