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But the gray and the cold are haunted
By a beauty akin to pain,—
By the sense of a something wanted,
That will never come again.

— William Wetmore Story Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

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Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: "In the Rain", Vol. II, p. 227.
Work: Poems of William Wetmore Story, 1885
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by William Wetmore Story

They only the victory win,
Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the demon that tempts us within;
Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the world holds on high;
Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight,—if need be, to die.

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

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Topics

Beauty

More quotes by William Wetmore Story

Of every noble work the silent part is best,
Of all expression that which can not be expressed.

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

Strive not to say the whole! The Poet, in his Art,
Must intimate the whole, and say the smallest part.

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

Ah, me! the vision has vanished—
The music has died away!

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

And all but their faith overthrown.

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

Oh! faint delicious spring-time violet,
Thine odor, like a key,
Turns noiselessly in memory's wards to let
A thought of sorrow free.

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

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Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.

Democritus Freeman (1948)

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.

William Wordsworth

The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?

André Gide The Immoralist (1902)

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.

William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Wetmore Story (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.