655 quotes
[From Lee, a dramatist]: Ah! the poet hath no true hope, who doth not place it in the many, and in the feeling of the common multitude.
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)
... oh! love will last
When all that made it happiness is past,—
When all its hopes are as the glittering toys
Time present offers, time to come destroys,—
The Troubadour (1825)
'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)
Sweet Pauline, could I buy thee
With gold or its worth,
I would not deny thee
The wealth of the earth.
They talk of the pleasure
That riches bestow —
Without thee, my treasure,
What joy could I know ?
Oh! sweet and sudden fire that springs
With but a look to light its wings;
How false to say thou needest time
The bright ascent of hope to climb;
A star thou art, that may not be
Reckoned by dull astronomy!
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)
It is a fact not to be disputed, that the aristocracy have not "progressed " in proportion to the other classes. A young nobleman of the present day has not a better education than his ancestor in the time of Elizabeth.
Wouldst thou know what life should be?
Were it mine but to decree
What its path should be for Thee ?
Look upon those sister powers,
Chained, but only chained with flowers, —
That bright group of rose-winged Hours
My spell is done, my prize is won ;
True love! thou hast equal none;
True love ! who could choose for thee
Gold or gems or vanity ?
Where is the spell whose charm will prove,
Like the spell of thy charm, true love ?
Great Heaven ! what vain beliefs
Have stirred the pulse and led the hopes of man !
As if that honour could be bought by blood,
And that the fierce right hand was better worth
Than the fine mind, and high and generous heart !—
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)
In endeavouring to recall a few memorials of Mrs. Lawrence Burgoyne, I do it on the same principle that scientific men collect the bones of a mammoth — the whole exists no longer ; but there are sufficient remains to show that it did exist.
There is a well of melancholy poetry in every human bosom. We have all mourned over the destroyed illusion and the betrayed hope. We have quarrelled in some embittered moment with an early friend, and when too late lamented the estrangement.
Perfect equality, and perfect despotism, are theories equally unreducible to practice; but there are many fine sentiments belonging to the first, and there is singular fascination in a fine sentiment—we pay ourselves a compliment by uttering it.
Alas, the strange varieties or life !
We live 'mid perils and pleasures, like
Characters 'graven on the sand, or hues
Colouring the rainbow. Wild as a sick fancy
And changeful as a maiden, is this dream,
This brief dream on earth - - - -
Genius doth catch the music of the spheres,
Which mortal ear was never meant to know.
Genius can penetrate the mysteries
Of feeling, all unknown to other hearts;
A power hath entered in the inmost soul,
Whose presence may not be contained.
Youth suffers but for a season; the bowed but unbroken spirit resumes its elasticity; the future, unknown and beautiful, wins the present to itself, and the past waits for that dark and overwhelming influence which sooner or later will darken our whole horizon.
Unveil'd, unmask'd ! not so, not so !
Ah ! thine are closer worn
Than those which, in light mockery,
One evening thou hast borne.
The mask and veil which thou dost wear
Are of thyself a part;
No mask can ever hide thy face
As that conceals thy heart.
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)
It is the strangest problem of humanity — one too, for which the closest investigation can never quite account — to trace the progress by which innocence becomes guilt, and how those who formerly trembled to think of crime, are led on to commit that at which they once shuddered.
Scene II. — (Mother, Clara, and afterwards Count Egmont.) [Act 3, Scene 2]
Egmont, followed by Clara, Brackenberg, and Citizens. [Act 5, Scene 1]
A small clear fountain, with green willow trees;
Girdling it round, there is one single spot
Where you may sit and rest, its only bank
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)