54 quotes
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Blush'd the first blush of coming day,
Faded the fairy band away.
They pass'd and only left behind
A lingering fragrance on the wind,
And on the lake, their haunted home,
One long white wreath of silver foam.
The Golden Violet (1827)
It was a summer evening; and the sea
Seem'd to rejoice in its tranquillity ;
Rolling its gentle waters to the west,
Till the rich crimson blush'd upon their breast,
Uniting lovingly the wave and sky,
Like Hope content in its delight to die.
The Golden Violet (1827)
Had my eye never on the beauty dwelt
Of human face, and my ear never drank
The music of a human voice; I feel
My spirit would have pour'd itself in song,
Have learn'd a language from the rustling leaves,
The singing of the birds, and of the tide.
The Golden Violet (1827)
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?
The Golden Violet (1827)
The earth was parched, the trees were sear'd,
And blasted every branch appear'd;
At one end yawned a gloomy cave,
Black, as its mouth were that of the grave;
And dark, as if the waters of death
Were in its depths, rose a well beneath.
The Golden Violet (1827)
Pride misers with enjoyment, when we have
Delight in things that are but of the mind:
But half humility when we partake
Pleasures that are half wants, the spirit pines
And struggles in its fetters, and disdains
The low base clay to which it is allied.
The Golden Violet (1827)
'T was night, but night which the imperial moon,
Regal in her full beauty, turn'd to noon,
But still the noon of midnight; though the ray
Was clear and bright, it was not that of day
The Golden Violet (1827)
'Tis May again, another May,
Looking as if it meant to stay ;
So many are its thousand flowers,
So glorious are its sunny hours,
So green its earth, so blue its sky,
As made for Hope's eternity.
The Golden Violet (1827)