655 quotes
… we like and require truth — always supposing and allowing that the said truth interferes neither with our interests nor our inclinations.
Romance and Reality (1831)
I believe that the grand secret of attraction is, that the details always turn on what is present to our fears, or gratifying to our vanity.
It is most sad to watch the fall
Of autumn leaves!--but worst of all
It is to watch the flower of spring
Faded in its fresh blossoming!
The Improvisatrice (1824)
Then rose those deadlier sounds that tell
When foes meet hand to hand,—
The shout, the yell, the iron clang
Of meeting spear and brand.
The Golden Violet (1827)
Now
I have no hope that does not dream for thee;
I have no joy that is not shared by thee;
I have no fear that does not dread for thee.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
The voyage appeared short, for I had nothing to anticipate.
Sketches indeed, from that most passionate page,
A woman's heart, of feelings, thoughts, that make
The atmosphere in which her spirit moves
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
Ah, Woman has no look so sweet
As that, when, half afraid to meet
The look she loves, blushes betray
All the suppressed glance would say.
Down she bent
Her head upon an arm so white that tears
Seem'd but the natural melting of its snow,
Touch'd by the flush'd cheek's crimson.
The Golden Violet (1827)
Such as the lute, touch'd by no hand
Save by an angel's, wakes and weeps,
Such is the sound that now to land
From the charmed water sweeps.
The Golden Violet (1827)
The bard, the warrior, and the sage,
What win they but one lying page,
Where deeds and words, at hazard thrown,
May be or may not be their own?
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
I am vain—praise is opium, and the lip
Cannot resist the fascinating draught,
Though knowing its excitement is a fraud—
Delirious—a mockery of fame.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
Maiden, fling from thy braided hair
The red rosebud that is wreathed there ;
For he who planted the parent tree
Is now what soon that blossom will be.
The Golden Violet (1827)
'Twas as she hoped, — he sleeps ; and now
Her lips are on his throbbing brow,
Sucking the poison forth : 't was bliss
To know she gave her life for his.
A thousand songs from a thousand boughs
The glad birds' pleasure declare ;
The rills are laughing in crystal light—
For the presence of Spring is there.
Alas, tears are the poet's heritage!
The Troubadour (1825)
Weep for life, with its toil and care,
Its crime to shun, and its sorrow to bear ;
Let tears and the sign of tears be shed
Over the living, not over the dead !
— a poet's love
Is immortality!
The Improvisatrice (1824)
There was an evil in Pandora's box
Beyond all other ones, yet it came forth
In guise so lovely, that men crowded round
And sought it as the dearest of all treasure.
I cannot choose but marvel at the way
In which our lives pass on, from day to day
Learning strange lessons in the human heart,
And yet like shadows letting them depart.
The Golden Violet (1827)