Quotes
Quotes about Sin
None can truly write his single day,
And none can write it for him upon earth.
A sacred burden is this life ye bear:
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly,
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly.
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.
I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.
A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy Fame is proud to win them;
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!
One unquestioned text we read,
All doubt beyond, all fear above;
Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed
Can burn or blot it--God is love.
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
To be engaged in opposing wrong affords, under the conditions of our mental constitution, but a slender guarantee for being right.
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet-bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years,
Comes round the age of gold;
When Peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
Then sing as Martin Luther sang,
As Doctor Martin Luther sang,
"Who loves not wine, woman and song,
He is a fool his whole life long."
It lies around us like a cloud--
A world we do not see;
Yet the sweet closing of an eye
May bring us there to be.
Oh their Rafael of the dear Madonnas,
Oh their Dante of the dread Inferno,
Wrote one song--and in my brain I sing it;
Drew one angel--borne, see, on my bosom!
Sing, riding's a joy! For me I ride.
The sin I impute to each frustrute ghost
Is--the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,
Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture.
A people is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one;
And those who live as models for the mass
Are singly of more value than they all.
White shall not neutralize the black, nor good
Compensate bad in man, absolve him so:
Life's business being just the terrible choice.
For right is right, since God is God,
And right the day must win;
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin.
Hark! Hark! my soul, angelic songs are swelling
O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat shore;
How sweet the truth those blessed strains are telling
Of that new life when sin shall be no more.
I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A truth and noonday light to thee.
I like the lad, who when his father thought
To clip his morning nap by hackneyed phrase
Of vagrant worm by early songster caught
Cried, "Served him right! It's not at all surprising
The worm was punished, Sir, for early rising!"
It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising; but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.
The sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven
By man is cursed alway.
I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me;
If my bark sinks, 't is to another sea.
I sing New England, as she lights her fire
In every Prairie's midst; and where the bright
Enchanting stars shine pure through Southern night,
She still is there, the guardian on the tower,
To open for the world a purer hour.
