655 quotes
Time passed as time ever does when passed monotonously, that is, with a degree of rapidity which only astonishes us when it is recalled to mind by some chance circumstance. Time should he reckoned by events, not hours ; the heart is its truest time-piece, at least as concerns ourselves.
Francesca Carrara (1834)
The history of a minute — why, it would give a bird's-eye view of every possible variety in human existence. Wonderful the many events that are happening together — life and death — joy and sorrow— the great and the mean — the common and the rare — good and evil — are all in the record of that brief segment of time.
Francesca Carrara (1834)
The difference between good and bad intentions is this : — that good intentions are so very satisfactory in themselves, that it really seems a work of supererogation to carry them into execution ; whereas evil ones have a restlessness that can only be satisfied by action — and, to the shame of fate be it said, very many facilities always offer for their being effected.
Romance and Reality (1831)
Not to the present is our hour confined,
The great and shadowy future is assigned
To be the glorious empire of the mind.
The past was once the future, and it wrought
In the high presence of on-looking thought ;
All that we have, was by its efforts brought.
To-day creates to-morrow, and the tree
Of good or ill grows in past hours, what we
Make for the future — certain is to be.
I rather disdained than coveted the luxuries I saw : alas ! we desire riches more for others than ourselves.
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)
Mysterious enthusiasm, Love !
The heart's supremest power;—which doth combine
Within itself religion, poetry,
And heroism.
Well he knows his course has hasted
Through delicious sin,
Borne tumultuously along.
Never have the stars above
Chronicled such utter love.
There grew her father's cypress tree,
No other monument had he.
He bade that never funeral stone
Should tell of glory overthrown,—
What could it say, but foreign sky
Had seen the exile pine and die?
The Golden Violet (1827)
It shock'd me first to see the sun
Shine gladly o'er thy tomb;
To see the wild flowers o'er it run
In such luxuriant bloom.
Now I feel glad that they should keep
A bright sweet watch above thy sleep.
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)
And here they met:—where should Love's meeting be —
Love passionate, and spiritual, and deep—
Where, but in such a haunted solitude—
A green and natural temple—fitting shrine
For vows the stars remember ?
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)
Oh this is not that sweet love
Own companion to the dove ;
But a wild and wandering thing,
Varying as the lights that fling
Radiance o'er his peacock's wing.
I do weep, that Love should be
Ever linked with Vanity.
O Earth ! all bathed with blood and tears, yet never
Hast thou ceased putting forth thy fruit and flowers;
And hast thou then no pity for mankind ?
Can thy maternal breast receive again
Their dust, and yet not throb ?
Alas! vows are his after sign!—
We prop the tree in its decline—
The ghosts that haunt a parting hour,
With all of grief, and nought of power;
A chain half sunder'd in the making,—
The plighted vow's already breaking.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
But music moves us, and we know not why;
We feel the tears, but cannot trace their source.
Is it the language of some other state,
Born of its memory ? For what can wake
The soul's strong instinct of another world,
Like music?
How noble and ennobling!—but within
How mean, how poor, how pitiful, how mix'd
With base alloy; how Disappointment tracks
The steps of Hope; how Envy dogs success;
How every victor's crown is lined with thorns,
And worn mid scoffs!
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
Dream, dream, let me dream,
Wherefore should I waken,
Sleep is as a fairy land
Not yet by spells forsaken.
Break not on the gentle charm
In which night has bound me,
Wherefore, wherefore should I wake
To the cold world around me ?
She fell as falls the rose in spring,
The fairest are ever most perishing,
Yet lingers that tale of sorrow and love,
Of the Christian maid and her Moslem love ;
A tale to be told in the twilight hour,
For the beauty's tears in her lonely bower.
The Golden Violet (1827)
How very desolate that breast must be,
Whose only joyance is in memory!
And what must woman suffer, thus betrayed?—
Her heart's most warm and precious feelings made
But things wherewith to wound: that heart—so weak,
So soft—laid open to the vulture's beak!
The Improvisatrice (1824)
It is a charmed ring—this emerald stone
Will be a sign, when thou art from me gone.
Mark if it changes; if a spot be seen
On the now spotless ground of lighted green,
Danger is round me; haste thou then to me,
Thou know'st how fearless is my trust in thee.
The Golden Violet (1827)
The product of that city, now
Far distant lands consume;
The Indian wears around his brow
The white webs of her loom.
Her vessels sweep from East to West ;
Her merchants are like kings ;
While wonders in her walls attest
The power that commerce brings.