It were better to be a soldier's widow than a coward's wife.

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.

What probing deep Has ever solved the mystery of sleep?

Those forms we fancy shadows, those strange lights That flash on dank morasses, the quick wind That smites us by the roadside—are the Night's Innumerable children. Unconfined By shroud or coffin, disembodied souls, Uneasy spirits, steal into the air From festering graveyards when the curfew tolls At the day's death... And wheresoever murders have been done, In stately palaces or lonesome woods, Where'er a soul has sold itself and lost Its high inheritance, there, hovering, broods Some sad, invisible, accurséd Ghost!

After a debauch of thunder-shower, the weather takes the pledge and signs it with a rainbow.

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.

With the tears a Land hath shed. Their graves should ever be green.