Top 15 Joel Benton Quotes

Bring cypress, rosemary and rue
For him who kept his rudder true;
Who went at dawn to that high star
Where Washington and Lincoln are!

Winged soul of beauty, tropic in desire,
Thy love seems alien in our northern zone;
Thou giv'st to our green lands a burst of fire
And callest back the fables we disown.
The hot equator thou mightst well inspire,
Or stand above some Eastern monarch’s throne.

A ball of fire shoots through the tamarack
In scarlet splendor, on voluptuous wings;
Delirious joy the pyrotechnist brings,
Who marks for us high summer's almanac.
How instantly the red-coat hurtles back!

Don't we all, of long ago,
By the ruddy fireplace glow,
In the kitchen and the hall,
Those queer, cooflike pranks recall? Eery shadows were they then—
But to-night they come again;
Were we once more but sixteen,
Precious would be Halloween.

Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite
All are on their rounds to-night,—
In the wan moon's silver ray
Thrives their helter-skelter play.

Nor moves his pen our heedless nation now,
Which, sworn to justice, stirred the people so.
In some far world his much-loved face must glow
With rapture still. This breeze once fanned his brow.
This is the peaceful Mecca all men know!

His cherished woods are mute. The stream glides down
The hill as when I knew it years ago;
The dark, pine arbor with its priestly gown
Stands hushed, as if our grief it still would show.

Looking along the horizon's endless line,
Man seems a pigmy in these realms of space; ...
Here are soft grasses, flowers of tender hue,
Palimpsests of the old and coming race.

Sea-like in billowy distance, far away
The half-broke prairies stretch on every hand;
How wide the circuit of their summer day—
What measureless acres of primeval land,
Treeless and birdless, by no eyesight spanned!

They will see a generation here and now that is trying to lift itself over the fence by standing in a corn-basket and pulling upward on the handles.

As we hold in derision now the discovery of the philosopher's stone and perpetual motion, so future generations will look upon this fetich of our time, and not without unspeakable amazement.

Agriculture and commerce, as they once were, are things of the past. The one has been made unprofitable beyond description; the other is now impossible, except in a reduced way, under an alien flag.

The only "protection" they ever were in need of is protection from dogs and tariff-mongers.

Farms are a constant quantity and do not increase. It is only the wave of debt that increases over them.

For the people to buy themselves out, would be the only honest way of transfer; but this would be like a man standing in a corn-basket and trying to lift himself by its handles over the fence.