33 quotes
Lord of the golden tongue and smiting eyes;
Great out of season and untimely wise:
A man whose virtue, genius, grandeur, worth,
Wrought deadlier ill than ages can undo.
Deemest thou, labour
Only is earnest?
Grave is all beauty,
Solemn is joy.
Lacrymæ Musarum and Other Poems (1893)
To keep in sight Perfection, and adore
The vision, is the artist's best delight;
His bitterest pang, that he can ne'er do more
Than keep her long'd-for loveliness in sight.
Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature (1884)
(He) set his heart upon the goal,
Not on the prize.
The Poet gathers fruit from every tree,
Yea, grapes from thorns and figs from thistles he.
Pluck'd by his hand, the basest weed that grows
Towers to a lily, reddens to a rose.
Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature (1884)
His friends he loved. His fellest earthly foes—
Cats—I believe he did but feign to hate.
My hand will miss the insinuated nose,
Mine eyes the tail that wagg'd contempt at Fate.
Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature (1884)
But when dread Sloth, the Mother of Doom, steals in,
And reigns where Labour's glory was to serve,
Then is the day of crumbling not far off.
"Song (April, April)", line 1, in The Hope of the World and Other Poems (London: John Lane, 1898), p. 41.
In this house with starry dome,
Floored with gemlike plains and seas,
Shall I never feel at home,
Never wholly be at ease?On from room to room I stray,
Yet mine Host can ne’er espy,
And I know not to this day
Whether guest or captive I.
Wordsworth's Grave and Other Poems (1890)
O ye by wandering tempest sown
Neath every alien star,
Forget not whence the breath was blown
That wafted you afar!
For ye are still her ancient seed
On younger soil let fall—
Children of Britain’s island-breed,
To whom the Mother in her need
Perchance may one day call.
Poems (1892)
A dreamer of the common dreams,
A fisher in familiar streams,
He chased the transitory gleams
That all pursue;
But on his lips the eternal themes
Again were new.
The Somewhat which we name but cannot know.
Ev'n as we name a star and only see
Its quenchless flashings forth, which ever show
And ever hide him, and which are not he.
The God I know of, I shall ne'er
Know, though he dwells exceeding nigh.
Raise thou the stone and find me there,
Cleave thou the wood and there am I.
Yea, in my flesh his spirit doth flow,
Too near, too far, for me to know.