Philip James Bailey (1816 – 1902)
English poet; he authored Festus.
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Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us truths.
The worst men often give the best advice.
Art is man's nature; nature is God's art.
Any heart turned Godward feels more joy
In one short hour of prayer, than e'er was raised
By all the feasts of earth since its foundation.
Who never doubted never half believed
Where doubt there truth is—'t is her shadow.
Envy's a coal comes hissing hot from hell.
I cannot be content with less than heaven;
Living, and comprehensive of all life.
Thee, universal heaven, celestial all;
Thee, sacrjd seat of intellective time;
Field of the soul's best wisdom: home of truth,
Star-throned.
Respect is what we owe; love what we give.
Evil and good are God's right hand and left.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Life's but a means unto an end; that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things, —God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.
America thou half-brother of the world!
With something good and bad of every land.
Men might be better if we better deemed
Of them. The worst way to improve the world
Is to condemn it.
Let each man think himself an act of God,
His mind a thought, his life a breath of God;
And let each try, by great thoughts and good deeds,
To show the most of Heaven he hath in him.
I cannot be content with less than heaven.
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