Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Anniversary
1807–1882 United States
← All quotes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
30 quotes
Love makes its record in deeper colors as we grow out of childhood into manhood; as the Emperors signed their names in green ink when under age, but when of age, in purple.
Table-Talk (1857)
Stronger than steel is the sword of the Spirit;
Swifter than arrows, the light of the truth;
Greater than anger is love that subdueth.
Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863)
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)
Enjoy the spring of love and youth,
To some good angel leave the rest;
For time will teach thee soon the truth,
There are no birds in last year's nest.
Ah, how skillful grows the hand
That obeyeth Love's command!
It is the heart, and not the brain,
That to the highest doth attain,
And he who followeth Love's behest
Far excelleth all the rest!
The nightingales among the sheltering boughs
Of populous many-nested trees
Shall teach me how to woo thee, and shall tell me
By what resistless charms or incantations
They won their mates.
I do not love thee less for what is done,
And cannot be undone. Thy very weakness
Hath brought thee nearer to me, and henceforth
My love will have a sense of pity in it,
Making it less a worship than before.
Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives.
The Seaside and the Fireside (1850)
A handful of red sand from the hot clime
Of Arab deserts brought,
Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,
The minister of Thought.
That was the first sound in the song of love!
Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,
And play the prelude of our fate. We hear
The voice prophetic, and are not alone.
The Spanish Student (1843)