Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

1807–1882 United States

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882) was an American poet and one of the five members of the group known as the Fireside Poets.

United States
19th-century poets
Novelists
Poets
Translators

Also known as: Henry W. Longfellow, Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Random Henry Wadsworth Longfellow quote

429 quotes

All things are symbols: the external shows
Of Nature have their image in the mind,
As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves.

Hoeder, the blind old god
Whose feet are shod with silence.

Who dares
To say that he alone has found the truth?

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind,
And in it are enshrined
The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought
The giver's loving thought.

Nothing now is left
But a majestic memory.

The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart,
When the full river of feeling overflows.

Kéramos, and Other Poems (1878)

A face that had a story to tell. How different faces are in this particular! Some of them speak not. They are books in which not a line is written, save perhaps a date.

Hyperion (1839)

Many critics are like woodpeckers, who, instead of enjoying the fruit and shadow of a tree, hop incessantly around the trunk, pecking holes in the bark to discover some little worm or other.

Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
To something new, to something strange;
Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day.

Kéramos, and Other Poems (1878)

He is dead, the sweet musician!
* * * *
He has moved a little nearer
To the Master of all music.

The Song of Hiawatha (1855)

'Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees
Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.

The Spanish Student (1843)

O lost days of delight, that are wasted in doubting and waiting!
O lost hours and days in which we might have been happy!

'Twas but a dream,—let it pass,—let it vanish like so many others!
What I thought was a flower is only a weed, and is worthless.

The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)

Ah, yes, the sea is still and deep,
All things within its bosom sleep!
A single step, and all is o'er,
A plunge, a bubble, and no more.

Her cap of velvet could not hold
The tresses of her hair of gold,
That flowed and floated like the stream.
And fell in masses down her neck.

An angel with a trumpet said,
"Forever more, forever more,
The reign of violence is o'er!"

O lovely eyes of azure,
Clear as the waters of a brook that run
Limpid and laughing in the summer sun!

The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more dreary,
And I am near to fall, infirm and weary.

The atmosphere
Breathes rest and comfort and the many chambers
Seem full of welcomes.

Her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.