Nature eschews regular lines; she does not shape her lines by a common model. Not one of Eve's numerous progeny in all respects resembles her who first culled the flowers of Eden. To the infinite variety and picturesque inequality of nature we owe the great charm of her uncloying beauty.
John Greenleaf WhittierOur toil is sweet with thankfulness, Our burden is our boon; The curse of earth's gray morning is The blessing of its noon.
John Greenleaf WhittierThe continuity of life is never broken; the river flows onward and is lost to our sight, but under its new horizon it carries the same waters which it gathered under ours, and its unseen valleys are made glad by the offerings which are borne down to them from the past,--flowers, perchance, the germs of which its own waves had planted on the banks of Time.
John Greenleaf WhittierThe tints of autumn...a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.
John Greenleaf WhittierFor still the new transcends the old In signs and tokens manifold; Slaves rise up men; the olive waves, With roots deep set in battle graves!
John Greenleaf WhittierSo all night long the storm roared on: The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Natureโs geometric signs, In starry flake, and pellicle, All day the hoary meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below,โ A universe of sky and snow!
John Greenleaf Whittier