All Quotes

"Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure,— Sighed to think I read a book, Only read, perhaps, by me."

"Yet sometimes, when the secret cup Of still and serious thought went round, It seemed as if he drank it up, He felt with spirit so profound."

"A happy youth, and their old age Is beautiful and free."

"And often, glad no more, We wear a face of joy because We have been glad of yore."

"Until a man might travel twelve stout miles, Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn."

"And he is oft the wisest man Who is not wise at all."

"A jolly place," said he, "in times of old! But something ails it now: the spot is cursed."

"Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream."

"Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

"A noticeable man, with large gray eyes."

"We meet thee, like a pleasant thought, When such are wanted."

"The poet's darling."

"The best of what we do and are, Just God, forgive!"

"For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago."

"Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain That has been, and may be again."

"Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice; Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye, Frozen by distance."

"Let beeves and home-bred kine partake The sweets of Burn-mill meadow; The swan on still St. Mary's Lake Float double, swan and shadow!"

"A remnant of uneasy light."

"To be a Prodigal's favourite,—then, worse truth, A Miser's pensioner,—behold our lot!"

"Maidens withering on the stalk."

"Sweetest melodies Are those that are by distance made more sweet."

"The gentle Lady married to the Moor, And heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb."

"Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares!— The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays."

"A power is passing from the earth."

"Earth helped him with the cry of blood."

"The monumental pomp of age Was with this goodly personage; A stature undepressed in size, Unbent, which rather seemed to rise In open victory o'er the weight Of seventy years, to loftier height."

""What is good for a bootless bene?" With these dark words begins my tale; And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring When prayer is of no avail?"

"But thou that didst appear so fair To fond imagination, Dost rival in the light of day Her delicate creation."

"'T is hers to pluck the amaranthine flower Of faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower, And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind."

"We bow our heads before Thee, and we laud And magnify thy name Almighty God! But man is thy most awful instrument In working out a pure intent."

"Sad fancies do we then affect, In luxury of disrespect To our own prodigal excess Of too familiar happiness."

"The sightless Milton, with his hair Around his placid temples curled; And Shakespeare at his side,—a freight, If clay could think and mind were weight, For him who bore the world!"

"Meek Nature's evening comment on the shows That for oblivion take their daily birth From all the fuming vanities of earth."

"Turning, for them who pass, the common dust Of servile opportunity to gold."

"To the solid ground Of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye."

"Soft is the music that would charm forever; The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly."

"A Briton even in love should be A subject, not a slave!"

"And when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains,—alas! too few."

"But he is risen, a later star of dawn."

"Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark."

"When his veering gait And every motion of his starry train Seem governed by a strain Of music, audible to him alone."

"Alas! how little can a moment show Of an eye where feeling plays In ten thousand dewy rays: A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!"

"Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound."

"The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift, That no philosophy can lift."

"Nature's old felicities."

"Since every mortal power of Coleridge Was frozen at its marvellous source, The rapt one, of the godlike forehead, The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth: And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle, Has vanished from his lonely hearth."

"How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the sunless land!"

"Those old credulities, to Nature dear, Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock Of history?"

"Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer."

"Faith is a passionate intuition"