429 quotes
Night after night,
He sat and bleared his eyes with books.
Every dew-drop and rain-drop had a whole heaven within it.
Hyperion (1839)
Welcome, my old friend,
Welcome to a foreign fireside.
He is a little chimney and heated hot in a moment.
The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)
Look, then, into thine heart, and write!
Voices of the Night (1839)
Taste the joy
That springs from labor.
The country is lyric,—the town dramatic. When mingled, they make the most perfect musical drama.
Kavanagh: A Tale (1849)
Dost thou know what a hero is? Why, a hero is as much as one should say,—a hero.
Hyperion (1839)
Let us, then, be up and doing.
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Voices of the Night (1839)
O thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands; life hath snares!
Ballads and Other Poems (1842)
I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are beautiful which, like the planets, have a steady, lambent light,—are luminous, but not sparkling.
Hyperion (1839)
How can I tell the signals and the signs
By which one heart another heart divines?
How can I tell the many thousand ways
By which it keeps the secret it betrays?
I have a passion for ballads. * * * They are the gypsy children of song, born under green hedgerows in the leafy lanes and bypaths of literature,—in the genial Summertime.
Hyperion (1839)
Yea, music is the Prophet's art
Among the gifts that God hath sent,
One of the most magnificent!
Dreams of the summer night!
Tell her, her lover keeps
Watch! while in slumbers light
She sleeps.
The glory of Him who
Hung His masonry pendant on naught, when the world He created.
As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so changes of studies a dull brain.
Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to follow
Meekly, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of her Saviour.
Evangeline (1847)
In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the gods see everywhere.
The Seaside and the Fireside (1850)
Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,—
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
Voices of the Night (1839)