Oh! now to be alone, on some grand height, Where heaven’s black curtains shadow all the sight, And watch the swollen clouds their bosom clash, While fleet and far the living lightnings flash... And see the fiery arrows fall and rise, In dizzy chase along the rattling skies,— How stirs the spirit while the echoes roll, And God, in thunder, rocks from pole to pole!

Are you really listening... or are you just waiting for your turn to talk?

As o'er the stormy sea of human Life We sail, until our anchor'd spirits rest In the far haven of Eternity.

...but when The Spirit speaks,—or beauty from the sky Descends into my being,—when I hear The storm-hymns of the mighty ocean roll, Or thunder sound,—the champion of the storm!— Then I feel envy for immortal words, The rush of living thought; oh! then I long To dash my feelings into deathless verse, That may administer to unborn time, And tell some lofty soul how I have lived A worshipper of Nature and of Thee!

Say, care-worn man, Whom Duty chains within the city walls, Amid the toiling crowd, how grateful plays The fresh wind o’er thy sickly brow, when free To tread the springy turf,— to hear the trees Communing with the gales,—to catch the voice Of waters, gushing from their rocky womb, And singing as they wander... Spring-hours will come again, and feelings rise With dewy freshness o’er thy wither’d heart.

Free healthcare and free and equal education and peace are about the only things I passionately believe in, and I think if you don't believe in those but you go to church on Sunday then that's hypocris.

Oh! none are so absorb'd, as not to feel Sweet thoughts like music coming o'er the mind: When prayer, the purest incense of a soul, Hath risen to the throne of heaven, the heart Is mellow'd, and the shadows that becloud Our state of darken'd being, glide away.