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The longer on this earth we live And weigh the various qualities of men The more we feel the high, stern-featured beauty Of plain devotedness to duty, Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal praise, But finding amplest recompense For life's ungarlanded expense In work done squarely and unwasted days.

The longer on this earth we live And weigh the various qualities of men The more we feel the high, stern-featured beauty Of plain devotedness to duty, Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal praise, But finding amplest recompense For life's ungarlanded expense In work done squarely and unwasted days.

Approximate author period: c. 1855 AD · industrial

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
James Russell Lowell
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1855 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1819–1891)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
The Optimist’s Good Morning (1911) (1911 AD)

Complete signed selection 56; printed byline: James Russell Lowell; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911; printed copyright 1907

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.