Alexander Smith

In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place to-day, it is vain to seek it there to-morrow. You can not lay a trap for it.

Everything is sweetened by risk.

Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.

Each time we love, We turn a nearer and a broader mark To that keen archer, Sorrow, and he strikes.

The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.

Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine.

The soul of man is like the rolling world, One half in day, the other dipt in night; The one has music and the flying cloud, The other, silence and the wakeful stars.

We hear the wail of the remorseful winds In their strange penance. And this wretched orb Knows not the taste of rest; a maniac world, Homeless and sobbing through the deep she goes.