Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books 1832-39

"What though our passing day but be A bubble on eternity; Small though the circle is, yet still ’Tis ours to colour at our will."

"Mine be that consciousness of life Which has its energies from strife, Which lives its utmost, knows its power, Claims from the mind its utmost dower—"

"Ah! never is that cherished face Banished from its accustomed place— It shines upon my weariest night It leads me on in thickest fight: All that seems most opposed to be Is yet associate with thee— Together life and thee depart, Dream—idol—treasure of my heart."

"Such was the colour—when her cheek Spoke what the lip might never speak. The crimson flush which could confess All that we hoped—but dared not guess. That blush which through the world is known To love, and to the rose alone—"

"For things it were so hard to say Are murmured easily in song— It is for music to impart The secrets of the burthened heart."

"The heart which on itself hath turned, Worn out with feelings—slighted—spurned— Till scarce one throb remained to show What warm emotions slept below, Never to be renewed again, And known but by remembered pain."

"Ah, only those who rarely know Kind words, can tell how sweet they seem. Great God, that there are those below To whom such words are like a dream."

"How fragrant to these dewy hours, The white magnolia lifts its urn The very Araby of flowers, Wherein all precious odours burn."

"And still more hopeless than when last she on their camp looked down, The foeman’s gathered numbers close round the devoted town: And daily in that fatal trench her chosen soldiers fall, And spread themselves, a rampart vain, around that ruined wall. Her eyes upon her city turn—alas! what can they meet, But famine, and despair, and death, in every lonely street?"

"One word there came from her white lips, one word, she spoke no more; But that word was for life and death, the young queen named—the Jojr."

"But weep for those the human things, so lovely and so young, The panting hearts which still to life so passionately clung; Some bound to this dear earth by hope, and some by love’s strong thrall, And yet dishonour's high disdain was paramount with all."

"There is famine on earth—there is plague in the air, And all for a woman whose face is too fair. There was silence like that from the tomb, for no sound Was heard from the chieftains who darkened around, When the voice of a woman arose in reply, ‘The daughters of Rajahstan know how to die.’"

"Beside is a lake covered over with isles, As the face of a beauty is varied with smiles: Some small, just a nest for the heron that springs From the long grass, and flashes the light from its wings; Some bearing one palm-tree, the stately and fair, Alone like a column aloft in the air; While others have shrubs and sweet plants that extend Their boughs to the stream o’er whose mirror they bend. . . . But the isle in the midst was the fairest of all . . . ."

"She bounds o’er the soft grass, half woman half child, As gay as her antelope, almost as wild. The bloom of her cheek is like that on her years; She has never known pain, she has never known tears, And thought has no grief, and no fear to impart; The shadow of Eden is yet on her heart."

"Proud, beautiful, fierce; while she gazes, the tone Of those high murky features grows almost her own; And the blood of her race rushes dark to her brow, The spirit of heroes has entered her now."

"The haughty eye closes, the white teeth are set, And the dew-damps of pain on the wrung brow are wet: The slight frame is writhing—she sinks to the ground; She yields to no struggle, she utters no sound— The small hands are clenched—they relax—it is past, And her aunt kneels beside her—kneels weeping at last."

"Oh sun, how glad thy rays are shed; How canst thou glory o’er the dead? Ah, folly this of human pride, What are the dead to one like thee, Whose mirror is the mighty tide, Where time flows to eternity? A single race, a single age, What are they in thy pilgrimage?"

"The Ganges’ quiet waves are rolled In one broad sheet of molten gold; And in the tufted brakes beside, The water-fowls and herons hide. And the still earth might also seem The strange creation of a dream."

"The heart it has a weary task Which unrequited love must keep; At once a treasure and a curse, The shadow on its universe. Alas, for young and wasted years, For long nights only spent in tears; For hopes, like lamps in some dim urn, That but for the departed burn."

"Out upon morning, its hours recall, Earth to its trouble, man to his thrall; Out upon morning, it chases the night, With all the sweet dreams that on slumber alight; Out upon morning, which wakes us to life, With its toil, its repining, its sorrow and strife."

"O ! glorious triumph, thus to sway at will All feelings in our nature ; thus to work The springs of sympathy, the mines of thought, And all the deep emotions of the heart."

"I know not how it acts on other minds, But this I know, my most enchanted world Is hidden when the curtain falls, and leaves Remembrance only of its gorgeous dreams And beautiful creations."

"There are very many devices wherewith we delude ourselves — indeed, human life has never seemed to me any thing more than a series of mistakes. It is a mistake to be born — another to live — and a third to die."

"Now, a love match is like that childish toy which consists of various boxes enclosed one within another, and yet contains nothing, after all."

"I wonder where Experience got its reputation ? — it has been very easily obtained — but it does not deserve it : they say, that it teaches fools ; it may teach them, but they do not learn."

"Hope and Love are the passions of the heart; the difference between them is, that Hope does not come to an end, but Love does. Love has two terminations ; it concludes either in profound indifference, or in intense hate. Now, in the general run of human natures, there is not energy enough for hate ; therefore, the usual finale is profound indifference ; the most insipid state of existence that can be devised."

"One goes out visiting for pleasure ; a fallacy belonging to that melancholy mania for change which has recourse to stage-coaches, and steam-boats, as if change of scene were change of self."

"— good news stops to take breath on the road ; bad news never requires it."

"They were more wise in other days; Then turn’d the hermit to his cell, And left a world where all betrays, Apart with his own thoughts to dwell."

"Ah ! if this old charm were sooth, One wish yet might tax its truth I would ask, however vain, Never more to wish again."

"People ought to be grateful : I have done a great deal for the poets ; is there not one among them to do something for me ? I entreat them to recollect that I have read them, which is a great deal ; I have bought them, which is still more ; and I have reduced their theory to practice, which is most of all. They owe me a recompense, and I have a plan in my head. I want one of them to come and commit suicide in my garden, and leave a paper behind requesting to be interred in that very spot. He might assign any reason his imagination suggested, and I would take care that religious attention should be paid to his last wish ; indeed, it is for that I desire his death."

"Alas ! hope is not prophecy,—we dream, But rarely does the glad fulfilment come : We leave our land and we return no more; Or come again, the weary and the worn."

"’Tis the worst curse, on this our social world, Fortune’s perpetual presence—wealth, which now Is like life’s paramount necessity."

"It is a glorious task to seek, Where misery droops the patient head : Where tears are on the widow’s cheek, Where weeps the mourner o’er the dead."

"Thou lone and lovely water, would I were A dweller by thy deepest solitude !"

"I deeply felt that song should make One universal link, Uniting, for each other’s sake, All those who feel and think."

"The poet’s lovely faith creates The beauty it believes The light which on his footstep waits He from himself receives."

"Fair Paris caught the crimson hue — Well may I call it fair. With its pure heaven of softest blue. Its clear and sunny air — Soft fell the morning o’er each dome That rises mid the sky ; And, conscious of the day to come, Demand their place on high."

"Round the Pantheon’s height was wrought A web of royal red ; A glory as if morning brought Its homage to the dead. And Notre Dame’s old gothic towers Were bathed in roseate bloom, As Time himself had scattered flowers Over that mighty tomb."

"How little is the happiness That will content a child— A favourite dog, a sunny fruit, A blossom growing wild. A word will fill the little heart With pleasure and with pride ; It is a harsh, a cruel thing, That such can be denied."

"How much they suffer from our faults ! How much from our mistakes ! How often, too, mistaken zeal An infant’s misery makes ! We overrule, and overteach, We curb and we confine, And put the heart to school too soon, To learn our narrow line."

"For the East is earth’s first-born, And hath a glorious dower As Nature there had lavished Her beauty and her power."

"The morning waked with carols, A young and joyous hand Of small and rosy songsters, Came tripping hand in hand. And sang beneath our windows, Just as the round red sun Began to melt the hoar-frost, And the clear cold day begun."

"History hath but few pages—soon is told Man’s ordinary life, Labour, and care, and strife, Make up the constant chronicle of old."

"Abel the victim—Cain the homicide, Were type and prophecy Of times that were to be, Thus reddened from the first life’s troubled tide."

"Fall, fall, ye mighty temples to the ground ; Not in your sculptured rise In the real exercise Of human nature's highest power found. ’Tis in the lofty hope, the daily toil, ’Tis in the gifted line, In each far thought divine, That brings down heaven to light our common soil. ’Tis in the great, the lovely, and the true, ’Tis in the generous thought, Of all that man has wrought, Of all that yet remains for man to do."

"We have no home—we have no friends, They said our home no more was ours ; Our cottage where the ash tree bends, The garden we had filled with flowers. . . . . Alas, it is a weary thing To sing our ballads o’er and o’er ; The songs we used at home to sing— Alas, we have a home no more !"

"I have a steed, to leave behind The wild bird, and the wilder wind : I have a sword, which does not know How to waste a second blow : I have a matchlock, whose red breath Bears the lightning’s sudden death ; I have a foot of fiery flight, I have an eye that cleaves the night. I win my portion in the land By my high heart and strong right hand."

"—the past, which is Imagination’s own gigantic realm."

"But now thou wilt fill a weary throne, What with rights of the people, and rights of thy own : An ear-trumpet now thy sceptre should be, Eternal debate is the future for thee. Lord Brougham will make a six-hours’ oration, On the progress of knowledge, the mind of the nation ; Lord Grey one yet longer, to state that his place Is perhaps less dear to himself than his race ; O’Connell will tell Ireland’s griefs and her wrongs, In speech, the mac-adamized prose of Moore’s songs :"