429 quotes
And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night.
Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863)
So when a great man dies,
For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men.
The prayer of Ajax was for light;
Through all that dark and desperate fight,
The blackness of that noonday night.
And suddenly through the drifting brume
The blare of the horns began to ring.
Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863)
Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship
Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!
The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought!
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems (1845)
St. Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!
I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o'er the city,
Behind the dark church-tower.
The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems (1845)
You behold in me
Only a travelling Physician;
One of the few who have a mission
To cure incurable diseases,
Or those that are called so.
Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupation,
That is known as the Children's Hour.
It is the fate of a woman
Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless,
Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence.
The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)
The star of the unconquered will.
Voices of the Night (1839)
As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bonds him she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows,
Useless each without the other!
The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
Let one unceasing, earnest prayer
Be, too, for light, for strength to bear
Our portion of the weight of care,
That crushes into dumb despair
One half the human race.
Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals
The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies!
But beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise.
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 (1878)
The course of my long life hath reached at last,
In fragile bark o'er a tempestuous sea,
The common harbor, where must rendered be,
Account of all the actions of the past.
If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change!
Kavanagh: A Tale (1849)
Take them, O Grave! and let them lie
Folded upon thy narrow shelves,
As garments by the soul laid by,
And precious only to ourselves!