Thomas Wentworth Higginson

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Rating: 4.33

Thomas Wentworth Higginson Poems

Thou spark of life that wavest wings of gold,
Thou songless wanderer mid the songful birds,
With Nature's secrets in thy tints unrolled
...

“SINCE Cleopatra died!” Long years are past,
In Antony’s fancy, since the deed was done.
Love counts its epochs, not from sun to sun,
...

Softer than silence, stiller than still air,
Float down from high pine boughs the slender leaves.
The forest floor its annual boon receives
...

LIGHT of dim mornings; shield from heat and cold;
Balm for all ailments; substitute for praise;
Comrade of those who plod in lonely ways
...

MID the flower-wreathed tombs I stand
Bearing lilies in my hand.
Comrades! in what soldier-grave
...

My baby sits beneath the tall elm-trees,
A wreath of tangled ribbons in her hands;
She twines and twists the many-coloured strands,-
...

NOW all the cloudy shapes that float and lie
Within this magic globe we call the brain
Fold quite away, condense, withdraw, refrain,
...

Thomas Wentworth Higginson Biography

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (December 22, 1823 – May 9, 1911) was an American minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism. During the Civil War, he served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized African-American regiment, from 1862-1864. Following the war, Higginson devoted much of the rest of his life to fighting for the rights of freed slaves, women and other disenfranchised peoples.)

The Best Poem Of Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Ode To A Butterfly

Thou spark of life that wavest wings of gold,
Thou songless wanderer mid the songful birds,
With Nature's secrets in thy tints unrolled
Through gorgeous cipher, past the reach of words,
Yet dear to every child
In glad pursuit beguiled,
Living his unspoiled days mid flowers and flocks and herds!

Thou winged blossom, liberated thing,
What secret tie binds thee to other flowers,
Still held within the garden's fostering?
Will they too soar with the completed hours,
Take flight, and be like thee
Irrevocably free,
Hovering at will o'er their parental bowers?

Or is thy luster drawn from heavenly hues, -
A sumptuous drifting fragment of the sky,
Caught when the sunset its last glance imbues
With sudden splendor, and the tree-tops high
Grasp that swift blazonry,
Then lend those tints to thee,
On thee to float a few short hours, and die?

Birds have their nests; they rear their eager young,
And flit on errands all the livelong day;
Each fieldmouse keeps the homestead whence it sprung;
But thou art Nature's freeman, - free to stray
Unfettered through the wood,
Seeking thine airy food,
The sweetness spiced on every blossomed spray.

The garden one wide banquet spreads for thee,
O daintiest reveller of the joyous earth!
One drop of honey gives satiety;
A second draught would drug thee past all mirth.
Thy feast no orgy shows;
Thy calm eyes never close,
Thou soberest sprite to which the sun gives birth.

And yet the soul of man upon thy wings
Forever soars in aspiration; thou
His emblem of the new career that springs
When death's arrest bids all his spirit bow.
He seeks his hope in thee
Of immortality.
Symbol of life, me with such faith endow!

Thomas Wentworth Higginson Comments

Thomas Wentworth Higginson Quotes

Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson Popularity

Thomas Wentworth Higginson Popularity

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