Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

Were it of flowers bereft!

They tremble on the Alpine height;

The fissured rock they press;

The desert wild, with heat and sand,

Shares, too, their blessedness:

And wheresoe’er the weary heart

Turns in its dim despair,

The meek-eyed blossom upward looks,

Inviting it to prayer.

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