Quote#Nature
As I came through the desert thus it was
Quote byJames Thomson · 1834–1882
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The City of Dreadful Night (1870–74), Part VI.
English (original)
As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert: All was black, In heaven no single star, on earth no track; A brooding hush without a stir or note; The air so thick it clotted in my throat.
— James Thomson
More from James Thomson
Give a man a girl he can love, As I, O my love, love thee; And his heart is great with the pulse of Fate, At home, on land, on sea.
Give a man a horse he can ride, Give a man a boat he can sail; And his rank and wealth, his strength and health, On sea nor shore shall fail.
We will rush ever on without fear; Let the goal be far, the flight be fleet! For we carry the Heavens with us, dear, While the Earth slips from our feet!
As we rush, as we rush in the train, The trees and the houses go wheeling back, But the starry heavens above that plain Come flying on our track.
What good, what use, what aim? What compensation for the throes of birth And death in all its frame? What conscious life hath ever paid its cost? From Nothingness to Nothingness — all lost!
The wine of Love is music, And the feast of Love is song: And when Love sits down to the banquet, Love sits long:Sits long and rises drunken, But not with the feast and the wine; He reeleth with his own heart,