Poets From England

"Yes, solitude amid her depths has many a hidden balm Guarded for those who leave her not, to strengthen and to calm."

"Dear friend, if it be your's to have in some deep vale a home, Where you may dream of faith and fate, and all the great, to come. If such a place of tranquil rest be to your future given, Where every hour of solitude is consecrate to heaven, Oh, leave it not ! let this vain life fret its few hours afar, Where joy departs, and glory mocks the wide world's weary war Let not its rude and angry tide with jarring torrent wake The silence that the poplars love, of your own limpid lake."

"Merciful God, thou dost not answer me ! I made my choice on earth, and now my heart Has no asylum. Ye decide for me, And such a destiny is best."

"If the wind murmurs then they seem to hear His voice ; and when night falls, the shadows round Seem the dark foldings of his sweeping robe. At noon, when life sees only the clear sky, Feels only the bright sun, the fated one Whom Death hath called, upon the distance marks The heavy shade so soon to shroud All nature from their eyes."

"Religion has no limits, and no bounds;— The vast, the infinite, and the eternal., Never from her may Genius separate. Imagination from its earliest flight, Past o'er the bounds of life : and the sublime Is the reflection of divinity."

"Take ye my solemn farewell ! O, my friends, Already night is darkening on my eyes ;— But is not Heaven most beautiful by night ? Thousands of stars shine in the kindling sky, Which is an azure desert during day. Thus do the gathering of eternal shades Reveal innumerable thoughts, half lost In the full daylight of prosperity."

"What we may do To-morrow may perhaps decide our fate. We may have said but yesterday some word Which may not be recalled."

"Genius doth catch the music of the spheres, Which mortal ear was never meant to know. Genius can penetrate the mysteries Of feeling, all unknown to other hearts; A power hath entered in the inmost soul, Whose presence may not be contained."

"Mysterious enthusiasm, Love ! The heart's supremest power;—which doth combine Within itself religion, poetry, And heroism."

"O Earth ! all bathed with blood and tears, yet never Hast thou ceased putting forth thy fruit and flowers; And hast thou then no pity for mankind ? Can thy maternal breast receive again Their dust, and yet not throb ?"

"O Memory ! noble power ! thy reign is here. Strange destiny, how thus, from age to age, Doth man complain of that which he has lost. Still do departed years, each in their turn, Seem treasures of happiness gone by: And while mind, joyful in its far advance, Plunges amid the future, still the Soul Seems to regret some other ancient home To which it is drawn closer by the past."

"Imagination's truth is from its power: Man's genius can create when nature's felt; He copies when he deems that he invents."

"It is Rome's secret charm to reconcile Imagination with our long last sleep. We are resign'd ourselves, and suffer less For those we love. The people of the South Paint closing life in hues less terrible Than do the gloomy nations of the North : The sun, like glory, even warms the grave."

"That charm of genius, triumph of high art; Poetry's divination, which reveals All nature's secrets, such as influence The heart of man."

"Your Dante ! Homer of the Christian age, The sacred poet of Faith's mysteries— Hero of thought—whose gloomy genius plunged In Styx, and pierced to hell ; and whose deep soul Was like the abyss it fathomed."

"Cradle of Letters ! Mistress of the World ! Soil of the Sun ! Italia! I salute thee ! How oft the human race have worn thy yoke. The vessels of thine arms, thine arts, thy sky !"

"The same, yet not the same — her face Has still that Grecian line ; The sculptured perfectness whose grace Has long been held divine."

"I wrote my name upon the sand; I thought I wrote it on thine heart. I had no touch of fear, that words, Such words, so graven, could depart."

"I dreamed a dream, that I had flung a chain Of roses around Love,—I woke, and found I had chained Sorrow."

"The world is as the sea, in whose salt waves, Like streams, we lose the freshness of our youth."

"I have won him, and shall keep him ; for to his weak temper habit will be as fetters of iron. I have won him — but how? He remembered not the earnest and devoted love of the young heart, which was his, and his only. Even my beauty failed to influence his selfish carelessness : but he is mine by a more potent spell. Love may be given in vain,— beauty may be powerless ; but I have mastered by the deeper magic of flattery."

"None but an ear, quickened as the mind can quicken the faculties of the body, could have heard a step that hesitated on the threshold."

"Can loveliness lose its power ? Ah, yes ! when love can lose its truth. Weak and impetuous, yielding to temptation, but trembling to enjoy the reward of the committed crime ; such is the man of whom my heart made its divinity, — for whose sake I would have toiled as a slave; ay, and do ; but with far other aim now. Let us but once meet again, Jehanghire, and thou art mine ! but I — I can never be thine again. Life, throne, fortunes, we will yet share together ; but my heart, never, never more !"

"The startled terror of remorse that dares not think of what it fears, is as inconsistent as all other human feelings."

"Hope deferred is sickness to the heart — and she was now suffering that sickness, at its worst."

"The city and the crowd unidealise love; and love, in the young warm heart of a girl, should be a dream apart from all commoner emotions — as sweet and as ethereal as the blush with which it is born and dies. Beauty gives its own gracefulness to love — there must be romance blended with the passion inspired by the very lovely face which the mirror reflected."

"The evil spirit of love left his soul for a moment, but returned, though with a strange and lurid aspect, bringing with him other and worse spirits than himself—hate, revenge, blood-thirstiness—all merged in and coloured by the excited and fanatic temper of the time."

"There is one conviction at which, though forced upon us by daily experience, we never arrive, namely, the conviction that Nobody in reality cares for Anybody; but this truth is so cold that we fence it out by all sorts of cloaks and coverings, delusions and devices."

"Perfect equality, and perfect despotism, are theories equally unreducible to practice; but there are many fine sentiments belonging to the first, and there is singular fascination in a fine sentiment—we pay ourselves a compliment by uttering it."

"But the tyranny of custom, like all other tyrannies, when grown quite unbearable—for it is wonderful what people will endure-;had already sown the seeds of its own dissolution. Out of the hardship had grown the repining, and to repine at the exercise of an alleged right is soon to question its authority, and the first question asked shakes the whole ancient and time-honoured fabric of privilege."

"Youth suffers but for a season; the bowed but unbroken spirit resumes its elasticity; the future, unknown and beautiful, wins the present to itself, and the past waits for that dark and overwhelming influence which sooner or later will darken our whole horizon."

"But the knowledge of the library is not that of the world; a youth of solitude is bad preparation for a manhood of action; from the earliest age we need to mingle with our kind; the child corrects and instructs the child more than their masters; our equals are the tools wherewith experience works out its lessons; and the play-ground, with its rival interests, its injustices, its necessity for the ready wit and the curbed temper is both miniature and prophesy of the world, which will but bring back the old struggles only with a sterner aspect, and the same successes, but with more than half their enjoyment departed."

"There is nothing in nature so impracticable as the obstinacy of your true husband; it is the insurmountable obstacle—the Alps no female vinegar can melt."

"Time past on as lightly as he always steps over flowers, Brussels carpets, marble terraces, green turfs, or whatever simile may best express a path without an impediment."

"... what could have brought him to Dalton. There were no chalybeate-springs, warranted to cure every disease under the sun; no ruins in the neighbourhood, left expressly for antiquarians and pic-nic parties; no fine prospects, which, like music, people make it matter of conscience to admire; no celebrated person had ever been born or buried in its environs; there were no races, no assizes—in short, there was “no nothing.""

"But youth is as a flowing stream, on whose current the shadow may rest but not remain."

"A letter then, breathing of home and affection, is a treasure ; it is like a memento from the dead, for absence is as death in all but that its resurrection is in this life."

"They say women are more constant than men : it is the constancy of circumstance ; the enterprise, the exertion required of men continually force them out of themselves, and that which was at first necessity soon becomes habit — whereas the constant round of employments in which a woman is engaged requires no fatigue of mind or body; the needle is, generally speaking, both her occupation and amusement, and this kind of work leaves the ideas full play ; hence the imagination is left at liberty to dwell upon one subject, and hence habit, which is an advantage on the one side, becomes to her an additional rivet."

"It is strange, though true, that the happiest part of our life is the shortest in detail. We dwell on the tempest that wrecked, the flood that overwhelmed — but we pass over in silence the numerous days we have spent in summer and sunshine."

"Faintly coloured like a dream of bliss, a half formed rainbow hung on the departing storm, as fearful of yet giving promise of peace."

"It may seem fanciful, but to me the violet is the very emblem of woman's love; it springs up in secret; it hides its perfume even when gathered ; how timidly its deep blue leaves bend on their slight stem ! The resemblance may be carried yet further — woman's love is but beautiful in its purity ; let the hot breath of passion once sully it, and its beauty is departed — thus as the summer advances, the violet loses its fragrance ; June comes, but its odours are fled — the heart too has its June ; the flower may remain, but its fragrance is gone for ever."

"There is truth and certainty in our first impressions. First impressions are natural monitors, and nature is a true guide."

"The voyage appeared short, for I had nothing to anticipate."

"No one can say farewell with indifference."

"Yes; for, while memory languidly is fetching Her treasures from the depths which they have lain among, A fragile hand — how thin — how weak — is sadly sketching Figures and fancies that cell's white walls along. On the lip there is a murmur — It is the swan's last song."

"Like a human thought in quest Of a future hour."

"Lonely — lonely on the shore — Where the mighty waters roar, Would that she could pass them o'er! Doth the maiden stand."

"Grief hath stern and silent powers, And her house is proud ; Not to-day's cold guarded hours Is despair allow'd ; But, shut out with haughty fears, Pride with daylight disappears, From the lovely Zegri Ladye — The Ladye weeping there."

"Ever sits the lady weeping — Weeping night and day — One perpetual vigil keeping, Till life pass away, And she join the seven who sleep."

"We change, and others change, while recollection Fain would renew what it can but recall : Dark are life's dreams, and weary its affection, And cold its hopes, — and yet I felt them all, A long while ago."