655 quotes
They say that, hung in ancient halls,
At midnight from the silent lute
A melancholy music falls
From chords which were by daylight mute.
And so the human heart by night
Is touched by some inspired tone,
Harmonious in the deep delight,
By day it knew not was its own.
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)
Yes; for, while memory languidly is fetching
Her treasures from the depths which they have lain among,
A fragile hand — how thin — how weak — is sadly sketching
Figures and fancies that cell's white walls along.
On the lip there is a murmur —
It is the swan's last song.
. . . Oh! the heart
Makes its own happiness, perchance the best,
When consecrate to one engrossing love !
Well, read my cheek, and watch my eye,—
Too strictly school'd are they,
One secret of my soul to show,
One hidden thought betray.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
The Dead ! the Dead ! and sleep they here,
The lost of other years —
The Dead ! the Dead ! can they be here,
Where nought of Death appears ?
Is this the curse that is laid on the earth ?
And must it ever be so,
That there can be nothing of human good
But must from some evil flow ? . . .
A summer isle, one over which the wind
Hath ever pass'd in melody,— such airs
As are born in the rose's breast, and die
Like singing on the waters.
He loves not, he loves me, he loves me not,
He loves me, — yes, thou last leaf, yes,
I'll pluck thee not, for that last sweet guess!
" He loves me,”
... absence is
The moonlight of affection
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)
But not like this is Nature's face,
Though even she must bear the trace
Of the great curse that clings to all ;
Her leaves, her flowers, must spring to fall
The Golden Violet (1827)
Beauty should be around the beautiful.
We differ widely from each other ; do we not, as circumstances change around us, moulding us like slaves to their will — do we not differ yet more from ourselves ?
In this our social state, where petty cares
And mercenary interests only look
Upon the present's littleness, and shrink
From the bold future, and the stately past,—
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
I am a daughter of that land,
Where the poet's lip and the painter's hand
Are most divine, —where the earth and sky,
Are picture both and poetry—
I am of Florence.
The Improvisatrice (1824)
We do too little feel each others' pain;
We do relax too much the social chain
That binds us to each other; slight the care
There is for grief in which we have no share.
The Golden Violet (1827)
TO-MORROW, to-morrow, thou loveliest May,
To-morrow will rise up thy first-born day;
Bride of the summer, child of the spring,
To-morrow the year will its favourite bring
The Golden Violet (1827)
But this is as a dream, — the plough has pass'd
Where the stag bounded, and the day has looked
On the green twilight of the forest-trees.
This Oak has no companion ! - - - -
The Improvisatrice (1824)
It is a night of summer,—and the sea
Sleeps, like a child, in mute tranquillity.
Soft o'er the deep-blue wave the moonlight breaks;
Gleaming, from out the white clouds of its zone
The Improvisatrice (1824)
Statues to whose rest seem'd given
Not the life of earth but heaven ;
For each statue here enshrined
What in the immortal mind
Makes its beauty and its power —
Genius's eternal dower
Does the sweet morning rise,
Bride-like, from sleep,
When their first revelries
Bird and bee keep,
Singing out joyously
In the green tree ?
Then, when my hopes are high,
Think I of thee.