Quote#Love
Love is this thing that we pursue today, tonight, for ever
Quote byArthur O'Shaughnessy · 1844–1881
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Barcarolle.
English (original)
Love is this thing that we pursue today, tonight, for ever, We care not whither, know not who shall be at length the giver: For Love, — our life and all our years are cast upon the waves; Our heart is as the hand that steers; — but who is He that saves?
— Arthur O'Shaughnessy
More from Arthur O'Shaughnessy
They had no vision amazing Of the goodly house they are raising; They had no divine foreshowing Of the land to which they are going: But on one man's soul it hath broken, A light that doth not depart;
With wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world's great cities, And out of a fabulous story We fashion an empire's glory: One man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
A breath of our inspiration Is the life of each generation; A wondrous thing of our dreaming Unearthly, impossible seeming — The soldier, the king, and the peasant Are working together in one,
We, in the ages lying In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself with our mirth; And o'erthrew them with prophesying To the old of the new world's worth;
We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; — World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams:
And therefore to-day is thrilling With a past day's late fulfilling; And the multitudes are enlisted In the faith that their fathers resisted, And, scorning the dream of to-morrow, Are bringing to pass, as they may,