19 quotes
All things are beautiful
Because of something lovelier than themselves,
Which breathes within them, and will never die.
Poems (1869)
The noblest of men and friends has left the world, — Phillips Brooks.
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
Eternal life and eternal death; what do these words mean?
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
These blossoms, gathered in familiar paths,
With dear companions now passed out of sight,
Shall not be laid upon their graves.
Poems (1869)
Where he is, life must be. He lived only in realities here, and he is entering into the heart of them now.
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
What does cause depression of spirits? Heavy head and heavy heart, and no sufficient reason for either, that I know of.
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
Earth is suffused, inhabited by heaven.
Poems (1869)
Whatever with the past has gone
the best is always yet to come.
I believe the best poetry of our times is growing too artistic; the study is too visible. If freedom and naturalness are lost out of poetry, everything worth having is lost.
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
Oh, her heart’s adrift with one
On an endless voyage gone!
Night and morning
Hannah’s at the window binding shoes.
Poems (1869)
We are strange phenomena to ourselves, when we will stop to gaze at ourselves; but that I do not believe in; there are pleasanter subjects, and self is a mere speck on the great horizon of life.
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
O Mariner-soul,
Thy quest is but begun,
There are new worlds
Forever to be won.
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
I do not own an inch of land,
But all I see is mine, —
The orchard and the mowing fields,
The lawns and gardens fine.
Poems (1869)
By making themselves believe that to be the all-important question, they draw off their own and others' attention from the really momentous one, — "Am I living the eternal life? Is it begun in me now?"
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
Breathe thy balm upon the lonely,
* Gentle Sleep!
As the twilight breezes bless
With sweet scents the wilderness,
Ah, let warm white dove-wings only
** Round them sweep!
Thy universe, O God, is home,
In height or depth, to me;
Yet here upon thy footstool green
Content am I to be;
Glad when is oped unto my need
Some sea-like glimpse of Thee.
Poems (1869)
Sometimes they seem like living shapes, —
The people of the sky, —
Guests in white raiment coming down
From heaven, which is close by;
I call them by familiar names,
As one by one draws nigh.
Poems (1869)
Much of our Christianity is not of a sufficiently enlarged type to satisfy an educated Hindoo… It is not a system at all that we want: it is Christ, the "wisdom of God and the power of God," Christ, the loving, creating, and redeeming friend of the world…
A part is greater than the whole;
By hints are mysteries told.
The fringes of eternity, —
God's sweeping garment-fold,
In that bright shred of glittering sea,
I reach out for and hold.
Poems (1869)