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Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye Quotes

1807–1867 England

Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye, later Helen Selina Hay, Countess of Gifford, born Helen Selina Sheridan, (1807 – 13 June 1867), was a British song-writer, poet, and author. As well as being admired for her wit and literary talents, she was a fashionable beauty and a well-known figure in London society of the mid-19th century.

England
Authors
Composers
Poets
Songwriters

Also known as: Helen Selina, Helen Selina Blackwood, Helen Selina Sheridan, Helen, Lady Dufferin, Lady Helen Dufferin, Selina, Helen

Random Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye quote

14 quotes

Surely it is hardly worthwhile to take up a pursuit merely to please other people.

In short, the world owns that we are the best-looking family in England and we are pretty well disposed to agree.

Rest now—and weep—thou praised of Earth!
And own, when all is done,
A world's false worship is not worth
The deep tried love of one.

Songs, Poems, & Verses (1894)

You see Georgy’s the beauty and Carry’s the wit, and I ought to be the good one, but then I am such a liar.

Thou mourner for departed dreams!
On earth there is no rest
When grief hath troubled the pure streams
Of memory in thy breast!

Songs, Poems, & Verses (1894)

The poor make no new friends;
But oh, they love the better still
The few our Father sends.

I am persuaded one ought not to set one's heart earnestly on any one pursuit in this world, if one wishes to preserve any of the energy of youth beyond its first years.

I am what Doctor Johnson would call a "compendious epitome" of all the virtues—in one volume very neatly bound, and very rare—there being but one copy extant.

Oh, Bay of Dublin! How my heart you're troublin',
Your beauty haunts me like a fever dream;
Like frozen fountains, that the sun sets bubblin'
My heart's blood warms when I but hear your name.

Songs, Poems, & Verses (1894)

Do, Car, open your eyes (and shut your mouth) and see that this is not our old world when we were all young, handsome women, much observed and talked of, and that you are no longer an ideal of Vanity Fair.

I'm bidding you a long farewell,
My Mary—kind and true!
But I'll not forget you, darling,
In the land I'm going to.
They say there's bread and work for all,
And the sun shines always there;
But I'll not forget old Ireland,
Were it fifty times as fair.

Songs, Poems, & Verses (1894)

I'm very lonely now, Mary,—
The poor make no new friends;—
But, oh! they love the better still
The few our Father sends

Songs, Poems, & Verses (1894)

I'm sitting on the stile, Mary,
Where we sat side by side,
That bright May morning long ago
When first you were my bride.
The corn was springing fresh and green,
The lark sang loud and high,
The red was on your lip, Mary,
The love-light in your eye.

Songs, Poems, & Verses (1894)

What a spirit of contradiction possesses one's kind friends! I, who have never done anything, am supposed to be capable of doing much; it is a great lesson, which I shall lay to heart. I will never give the measure of my shallowness; I will go on laboring in my vocation; I will "do nothing" more energetically than ever.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.