Verbal Expression

by Horatio Alger, Jr.

One autumn day, when hedges yet were green,
  And thick-branched trees diffused a leafy gloom,
Hard by where Avon rolls its silvery tide,
  I stood in silent thought by Shakspeare’s tomb.

O happy church, beneath whose marble floor
  His ashes lie who so enriched mankind;
The many-sided Shakespeare, rare of soul,
  And dowered with an all-embracing mind.

Through the stained windows rays of sunshine fall
  In softened glory on the chancel floor;
While I, a pilgrim from across the sea,
  stand with bare head in reverential awe.

Churches there are within whose gloomy vaults
  Repose the bones of those that once were kings;
Their power has passed, and what remains but clay?
  While in his grave our Shakspeare lives and sings.

Kings were his puppets, kingdoms but his stage,–
  Faint shadows they without his plastic art,–
He waves his wand, and lo! they live again,
  And in his world perform their mimic part.                  

Born in the purple, his imperial soul                       
  Sits crowned and sceptred in the realms of mind.
Kingdoms may fall, and crumble to decay,
  Time but confirms his empire o’er mankind.

by Edgar Allan Poe
  Thou wouldst be loved?–then let thy heart
    From its present pathway part not;
  Being everything which now thou art,
    Be nothing which thou art not.
  So with the world thy gentle ways,
    Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
  Shall be an endless theme of praise.
    And love a simple duty.

by Emily Dickinson
Elysium is as far as to
The very nearest room,
If in that room a friend await
Felicity or doom.

What fortitude the soul contains,
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming foot,
The opening of a door!

I asked no other thing,
No other was denied.
I offered Being for it;
The mighty merchant smiled.

Brazil? He twirled a button,
Without a glance my way:
“But, madam, is there nothing else
That we can show to-day?”