English Quotes — page 1622

Alas, tears are the poet's heritage!

Never, dear father, love can be, Like the dear love I had for thee!

—music's power Is little felt in sunlit hour; But hear its voice when hopes depart, Like swallows, flying from the heart On which the summer's late decline Has set a sadness and a sign;. . . . . .

"There is a steep and lofty wall, Where my warders trembling stand, He who at speed shall ride round its height, For him shall be my hand."

'Tis strange how the heart can create Or colour from itself its fate; We make ourselves our own distress, We are ourselves our happiness.

Oh! why should woman ever love, Trusting to one false star above; And fling her little chance away Of sunshine for its treacherous ray.

'Tis strange with how much power and pride The softness is of love allied; How much of power to force the breast To be in outward show at rest,— How much of pride that never eye May look upon its agony!

Oh! what is memory but a gift Within a ruin'd temple left, Recalling what its beauties were, And then presenting what they are.

There is an indolence in grief Which will not even seek relief. What is the toil, or care, or pain, The human heart cannot sustain? Enough if struggling can create A change or colour in our fate;

I LOVED her! ay, I would have given A death-bed certainty of heaven If I had thought it could confer The least of happiness on her!

The scar of fire, the dint of steel, Are easier than Love's wounds to heal.

Pure as the snow the summer sun Never at noon hath look'd upon, — Deep, as is the diamond wave, Hidden in the desart cave, — Changeless, as the greenest leaves Of the wreath the cypress weaves, —

Where is the heart that has not bow'd A slave, eternal Love, to thee: Look on the cold, the gay, the proud, And is there one among them free?

Awakening hope has named the name Of love, or blown its spark to flame. Restlessness, but as the winds range From leaf to leaf, from flower to flower; Changefulness, but as rainbows change, From colour'd sky to sunlit hour.

Oh, love is timid in its birth! Watching her lightest look or stir, As he but look'd and breathed with her. Gay words were passing, but he leant In silence; yet, one quick glance sent,— His secret is no more his own,

Autumn was falling, but the pine Seem'd as it mock'd all change; no sign Of season on its leaf was seen, The same dark gloom of changeless green. But like the gorgeous Persian bands 'Mid the stern race of northern lands,

The first, the very first; oh! none Can feel again as they have done; In love, in war, in pride, in all The planets of life's coronal, However beautiful or bright,— What can be like their first sweet light?

Oh, she had yet the task to learn How often woman's heart must turn To feed upon its own excess Of deep yet passionate tenderness! How much of grief the heart must prove That yields a sanctuary to love!

The cold north wind which bows to earth The lightness of the willow's birth Bends not the mountain cedar trees; Folding their branches from the breeze, They stand as if they could defy The utmost rage of storm and sky.

Alas! that every lovely thing Lives only but for withering,— That spring rainbows and summer shine End but in autumn's pale decline.

Oh, where is there the heart but knows Love's first steps are upon the rose!

'Tis not for Spring to think on all The sear and waste of Autumn's fall: —

Alas! for him whose youthful fire Is vowed and wasted on the lyre,— Alas! for him who shall essay, The laurel's long and dreary way! Mocking will greet, neglect will chill His spirit's gush, his bosom's thrill;

For his was now the loveliest part Of the young poet's life, when first, In solitude and silence nurst, His genius rises like a spring Unnoticed in its wandering; Ere winter cloud or summer ray