655 quotes
Adventures never happen now-a-days; there are neither knights nor highwaymen; no lonely heaths, with gibbets, for finger-posts; no hope of even a dangerous rut, or a steep hill; romance and roads are alike macadamised; no young ladies are either run away with, or run over; —
Romance and Reality (1831)
The leaves were gone from all, save where the pine
Threw the wide shadow of its unchang'd green.
I could not envy it that fadeless state.—
Ah ! who would be the last, the only one
That ruin spares—no ; if the blight must pass
O'er all around, let it pass o'er me too !
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)
My bark is on the ocean riding,
Like a spirit o'er it gliding;
Maiden, wilt thou come—and be
Queen of my fair ship and me?
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)
The moon is darkened in the sky
As if grief 's shade were passing by
Ever sits the lady weeping —
Weeping night and day —
One perpetual vigil keeping,
Till life pass away,
And she join the seven who sleep.
"Waverley" was the avater of a new era
It was his last, his only field:
They brought him back upon his shield,
But victory was won.
I cannot weep when I recall
Thy land has cause to bless thy fall.
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)
Harsh all earth's destinies, — but his most hard
Who may not trust the praise he loves to hear —
Who may not hold his fame sure till, too late,
The seal of death and truth is set by fate.
On the horizon is a star,
Its earliest, loveliest one by far ;
A blush is yet upon the sky,
As if too beautiful to die,—
A last gleam of the setting sun,
Like hope when love has just begun
The Golden Violet (1827)
'Tis strange with how much power and pride
The softness is of love allied;
How much of power to force the breast
To be in outward show at rest,—
How much of pride that never eye
May look upon its agony!
Ah! little will the lip reveal
Of all the burning heart can feel.
The Troubadour (1825)
Awakening hope has named the name
Of love, or blown its spark to flame.
Restlessness, but as the winds range
From leaf to leaf, from flower to flower;
Changefulness, but as rainbows change,
From colour'd sky to sunlit hour.
Ay, well indeed may minstrel sing,—
What have the heart and year like spring?
The Troubadour (1825)
The life of the most successful writer has rarely been other than of toil and privation; and here I cannot but notice a singularly absurd "popular fancy," that genius and industry are incompatible. The one is inherent in the other. A mind so constituted has a restlessness in its powers, which forces them into activity.
To this fine spirit our earth owes her greatest:
For the future is purchased by scorning the present,
And life is redeemed from its clay soil by fame.
* King, not a vestige remains of your palaces;
Conqueror, forgotten the fame of your battles:
But the Poet yet lives in the sweetness of music—
He appeal'd to the heart, that never forgets.
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)
In moments of great anxiety there is a sort of natural superstition about the heart, which the reason rejects in cooler moments.
The History of a Child
It is a humbling thing to human pride to observe that strength of mind does not preserve its possessor from indulging any favourite delusion; but that this very strength gives its own force to the belief.
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)
Our prize is won, our chase is o’er,
Turn the vessel to the shore.
Place yon rock, so that the wind,
Like a prisoner, howl behind ;
Which is darkest—wave, or cloud ?
One a grave, and one a shroud.
I dread the pictures of my dreams,
For, then I gaze on thee;
And thou art near, and thou art all
That I would have thee be.
And then I startle from my sleep,
And know all false, and watch and weep.
Which is the best,—
Beauty and glory, in a southern clime,
Mingled with thunder, tempest ; or the calm
Of skies that scarcely change, which, at the least,
If much of shine they have not, have no storms?
The Golden Violet (1827)
We change, and others change, while recollection
Fain would renew what it can but recall :
Dark are life's dreams, and weary its affection,
And cold its hopes, — and yet I felt them all,
A long while ago.
A louder sweep the music gave :
The chieftain of the charmed wave,
Graceful upon his steed of snow,
Rises from his blue halls below ;
And rode he like a victor-knight
Thrice glorious in his arms of light.
The Golden Violet (1827)