Park Benjamin, Sr.

Park Benjamin, Sr. (August 14, 1809 – September 12, 1864) was an American poet, editor and founder of several newspapers.

Quotes

• I'm king of the dead—and I make my throne
  On a monument slab of marble cold;
  And my scepter of rule is the spade I hold:
  Come they from cottage or come they from hall,
  Mankind are my subjects, all, all, all!
  Let them loiter in pleasure or toilfully spin—
  I gather them in, I gather them in!
  • The Old Sexton, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Flowers are Love's truest language.
  • Sonnet, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• The mountain rill
  Seeks with no surer flow the far bright sea,
  Than my unchang'd affections flow to thee.
  • To One Beloved.

• Great faith it needs, according to my view,
  To trust in that which never could be true.
  • Infatuation.

• He loved his kind, but sought the love of few,
  And valued old opinions more than new.
  • Infatuation.

• But then to part! to part when Time
  Has wreathed his tireless wing with flowers,
  And spread the richness of a clime
  Of fairy o'er this land of ours;
  When glistening leaves and shaded streams
  In the soft light of Autumn lay,
  And, like the music of our dreams,
  The viewless breezes seemed to stray—
  'T was bitter then to rend the heart
  With the sad thought that we must part;
  And, like some low and mournful spell,
  To whisper but one word—farewell!
  • A Thought on Parting.

• Pure and undimmed, thy angel smile
  Is mirrored on my dreams,
  Like evening's sunset-girded isle
  Upon her shadowed streams:
  And o'er my thoughts thy vision floats,
  Like melody of spring-bird, notes;
  When the blue halcyon gently laves
  His plumage in the flashing waves.
  • To a young girl.

• Press on! there's no such word as fail!
  Press nobly on! the goal is near,—
  Ascend the mountain! breast the gale!
  Look upward, onward,—never fear!
  Why shouldst thou faint? Heaven smiles above,
  Though storm and vapor intervene;
  That sun shines on, whose name is Love,
  Serenely o'er Life's shadow'd scene.
  • Press On.

• Press on! If Fortune play thee false
  To-day, tomorrow she'll be true;
  Whom now she sinks she now exalts,
  Taking old gifts and granting new,
  The wisdom of the present hour
  Makes up the follies past and gone;
  To weakness, strength succeeds, and power
  From frailty springs! Press on, press on!
  • Press On.

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