429 quotes
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,
And play the prelude of our fate.
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives.
The Seaside and the Fireside (1850)
Sang in tones of deep emotion,
Songs of love and songs of longing.
The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
Ah, the souls of those that die
Are but sunbeams lifted higher.
The Golden Legend (1851)
Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice
Triumphs.
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847)
Into a world unknown,—the corner-stone of a nation.
The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)
Be noble in every thought
And in every deed!
I love thee, as the good love heaven.
The Spanish Student (1843)
There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
The Seaside and the Fireside (1850)
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
Every great poem is in itself limited by necessity, — but in its suggestions unlimited and infinite.
Table-Talk (1857)
See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft
So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away
Over the snowy peaks!
Beautiful in form and feature,
Lovely as the day,
Can there be so fair a creature
Formed of common clay?
The Masque of Pandora (1875)
Time, like a preacher in the days of the Puritans, turned the hour-glass on his high pulpit, the church belfry.
Hyperion (1839)
Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;
Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.
Oh, there is something in that voice that reaches
The innermost recesses of my spirit!
Don't cross the bridge till you come to it,
Is a proverb old, and of excellent wit.
And as she looked around, she saw how Death the consoler,
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847)
To be left alone
And face to face with my own crime, had been
Just retribution.
The Masque of Pandora (1875)