Poets From England

"And all day long, so close and near, As in a mystic dream I hear Their gentle accents kind and dear — The old familiar voices. They have no sound that I can reach — But silence sweeter is than speech."

"Drink, my jolly lads, drink with discerning, Wedlock's a lane where there is no turning; Never was owl more blind than a lover, Drink and be merry, lads, half seas over."

"Down in the deep, up in the sky, I see them always, far or nigh, And I shall see them till I die — The old familiar faces."

"There never was night that had no morn."

"O, my son's my son till he gets him a wife, But my daughter's my daughter all her life."

"A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without vision is but drudgery. A vision with a task is the hope of the world."

"Sweet April-time — O cruel April-time! Year after year returning, with a brow Of promise, and red lips with longing paled, And backward-hidden hands that clutch the joys Of vanished springs, like flowers."

"The irrevocable Hand That opes the year's fair gate, doth ope and shut The portals of our earthly destinies; We walk through blindfold, and the noiseless doors Close after us, for ever.Pause, my soul, On these strange words — for ever — whose large sound Breaks flood-like, drowning all the petty noise Our human moans make on the shores of Time. O Thou that openest, and no man shuts; That shut'st, and no man opens — Thee we wait!"

"Nothing but a speck we seem In the waste of waters round, Floating, floating like a dream, — Outward bound."

"All that we know of Thee, or knowing not Love only, waiting till the perfect time When we shall know even as we are known;— O Thou Child Jesus, Thou dost seem to say By the soft silence of these heavenly eyes (That rose out of the depths of nothingness Upon this limner's reverent soul and hand) We too should be about our father's business — O Christ, hear us!"

"Awakener, come! Fling wide the gate of an eternal year, The April of that glad new heavens and earth Which shall grow out of these, as spring-tide grows Slow out of winter's breast. Let Thy wide hand Gather us all — with none left out (O God! Leave Thou out none!) from the east and from the west. Loose Thou our burdens: heal our sicknesses; Give us one heart, one tongue, one faith, one love. In Thy great Oneness made complete and strong — To do Thy work throughout the happy world — Thy world, All-merciful — Thy perfect world."

"One cannot make oneself, but one can sometimes help a little in the making of somebody else."

"Thus King Dolor's reign passed, year after year, long and prosperous. Whether he was happy — "as happy as a king" — is a question no human being can decide. But I think he was, because he had the power of making everybody about him happy, and did it too; also because he was his godmother's godson, and could shut himself up with her whenever he liked, in that quiet little room in view of the Beautiful Mountains, which nobody else ever saw or cared to see. They were too far off, and the city lay so low. But there they were, all the time. No change ever came to them; and I think, at any day throughout his long reign, the King would sooner have lost his crown than have lost sight of the Beautiful Mountains."

"It seemed as if she had given these treasures and left him alone — to use them or lose them, apply them or misapply them, according to his own choice. That is all we can do with children, when they grow into big children, old enough to distinguish between right and wrong, and too old to be forced to do either."

"To accept the inevitable, neither to struggle against it nor murmur at it, simply to bear it — this is the great lesson of life."

"I have nothing to say against uncles in general. They are usually very excellent people, and very convenient to little boys and girls."

"God rest ye, little children; let nothing you afright, For Jesus Christ, your Saviour, was born this happy night; Along the hills of Galilee the white flocks sleeping lay, When Christ, the child of Nazareth, was born on Christmas day."

"[T]here is nothing so absolute as the tyranny of weakness."

"A parent, unlike a poet, is not born, he is made."

"Two hands upon the breast, And labour’s done; Two pale feet crossed in rest, The race is won."

"This, this is Thou. No idle painter's dream Of aureoled, imaginary Christ, Laden with attributes that make not God; But Jesus, son of Mary; lowly, wise, Obedient, subject unto parents, mild, Meek — as the meek that shall inherit earth, Pure — as the pure in heart that shall see God.O infinitely human, yet divine! Half clinging childlike to the mother found, Yet half repelling — as the soft eyes say, "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not That I must be about my Father's business?""

"Those whose own light is quenched are often the light-bringers."

"The buttercups across the field Made sunshine rifts of splendour."

"Immortality Alone could teach this mortal how to die."

"Lo! all life this truth declares! Laborare est orare; And the whole earth rings with prayers."

"Thus ended our little talk: yet it left a pleasant impression. True, the subject was strange enough; my sisters might have been shocked at it; and at my freedom in asking and giving opinions. But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. Somebody must have done a good deal of the winnowing business this afternoon; for in the course of it I gave him as much nonsense as any reasonable man could stand."

"Autumn to winter — winter into spring — Spring into summer — summer into fall — Thus rolls the changing year, and thus we change; Motion so swift we know not that we move."

"Forgotten? No, we never do forget: We let the years go: wash them clean with tears, Leave them to bleach, out in the open day, Or lock them careful by, like dead friends' clothes, Till we shall dare unfold them without pain— But we forget not, never can forget."

"A finished life — a life which has made the best of all the materials granted to it, and through which, be its web dark or bright, its pattern clear or clouded, can now be traced plainly the hand of the Great Designer; surely this is worth living for? And though at its end it may be somewhat lonely; though a servant's and not a daughter's arm may guide the failing step; though most likely it will be strangers only who come about the dying bed, close the eyes that no husband ever kissed, and draw the shroud kindly over the poor withered breast where no child's head has ever lain; still, such a life is not to be pitied, for it is a completed life. It has fulfilled its appointed course, and returns to the Giver of all breath, pure as He gave it. Nor will He forget it when He counteth up His jewels."

"[T]here are no judgments so harsh as those of the erring, the inexperienced, and the young."

"The only way to make people good, is to make them happy."

"Mine to the core of the heart, my beauty! Mine, all mine, and for love, not duty: Love given willingly, full and free, Love for love's sake — as mine to thee. Duty's a slave that keeps the keys, But Love, the master, goes in and out Of his goodly chambers with song and shout, Just as he please — just as he please."

"No virtue ever was founded on a lie. The truth, then, at all risks and costs — the truth from the beginning. Make a clean breast to whomsoever you need to make it, and then — face the world."

"The present only is a man's possession; the past is gone out of his hand, wholly, irrevocably. He may suffer from it, learn from it — in degree, perhaps, expiate it; but to brood over it is utter madness."

"What comfort there is in a cheerful spirit! how the heart leaps up to meet a sunshiny face, a merry tongue, an even temper, and a heart which either naturally, or, what is better, from conscientious principle, has learned to take all things on their bright side, believing that the Giver of life being all-perfect Love, the best offering we can make to Him is to enjoy to the full what He sends of good, and bear what He allows of evil!"

"We have not to construct human nature afresh, but to take it as we find it, and make the best of it."

"Though it is folly to suppose that happiness is a matter of volition, and that we can make ourselves content and cheerful whenever we choose — a theory that many poor hypochondriacs are taunted with till they are nigh driven mad — yet, on the other hand, no sane mind is ever left without the power of self-discipline and self-control in a measure, which measure increases in proportion as it is exercised."

"There is no sorrow under heaven which is, or ought to be, endless. To believe or to make it so, is an insult to Heaven itself."

"It is a curious truth — and yet a truth forced upon us by daily observation — that it is not the women who have suffered most who are the unhappy women. A state of permanent unhappiness — not the morbid, half-cherished melancholy of youth, which generally wears off with wiser years, but that settled, incurable discontent and dissatisfaction with all things and all people, which we see in some women, is, with very rare exceptions, at once the index and the exponent of a thoroughly selfish character."

"This is practically the language used to fallen women, and chiefly by their own sex: "God may forgive you, but we never can!" — a declaration which, however common, in spirit if not in substance, is, when one comes to analyse it, unparalleled in its arrogance of blasphemy. That for a single offence, however grave, a whole life should be blasted, is a doctrine repugnant even to Nature's own dealings in the visible world."

"Happiness is not an end — it is only a means, and adjunct, a consequence. The Omnipotent Himself could never be supposed by any, save those who out of their own human selfishness construct the attributes of Divinity, to be absorbed throughout eternity in the contemplation of His own ineffable bliss, were it not identical with His ineffable goodness and love."

"A lost love. Deny it who will, ridicule it, treat it as mere imagination and sentiment, the thing is and will be; and women do suffer therefrom, in all its infinite varieties: loss by death, by faithlessness or unworthiness, and by mistaken or unrequited affection."

"It may often be noticed, the less virtuous people are, the more they shrink away from the slightest whiff of the odour of un-sanctity. The good are ever the most charitable, the pure are the most brave."

"To-morrow is — ah, whose?"

"To have loved and lost, either by that total disenchantment which leaves compassion as the sole substitute for love which can exist no more, or by the slow torment which is obliged to let go day by day all that constitutes the diviner part of love — namely, reverence, belief, and trust, yet clings desperately to the only thing left it, a long-suffering apologetic tenderness — this lot is probably the hardest any woman can have to bear."

"If, as criticism in the 1970s suggests, condescending treatments of Macaulay are no longer fashionable, he may be seen to rank among the greatest English prose writers, with Addison and Johnson, the subjects of two of his finest essays."

"What Macaulay did was to infuse the liberal creed with the spacious and sanguine spirit of humanism and history."

"But above all, he typified the two things that really make the Victorian Age itself; the cheapness and narrowness of its conscious formulae; the richness and humanity of its unconscious tradition."

"The real villains of Macaulay's piece are the extremists of right and left, those on the right who refused to accept the Revolutionary Settlement, and those on the left who would go so far toward Dissent, latitudinarianism, restricted monarchy, and even republicanism as to jeopardize the Revolutionary Settlement. The villains of the right are the Nonjurors and the Jacobites, open and secret... And as so often happens in politics, left and right frequently worked together in common opposition to the center—in this case the Revolutionary center—and this was a fact Macaulay never forgot. Macaulay's History, then, becomes a classic defense of the middle of the road. Make progress, as much as practicable, within the framework of the Revolutionary Settlement, but never do anything to jeopardize that Settlement."

"[T]here is no denying that Macaulay's historical sympathies were strongly enlisted in support of limited and constitutional government, parliamentary and cabinet government, the extension of civil liberties, the expansion of religious toleration, the broadening of intellectual freedom, the curbing of mercantilistic restrictions, the elimination of trading barriers, the widening of free trade. Since the rising middle class was an exponent of many of these policies, Macaulay in a sense may be said to be an apologist of that class. And since the Whig party was frequently an advocate of many of these policies, Macaulay, in his role of historian, often appears friendly to that party. But this is about as far as Macaulay went in writing from the Whig point of view."