Familiar Quotations, - [best romance ebooks .txt] 📗
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Whose wit in the combat, as gentle as bright,
Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade.
On the Death of Sheridan.
Good at a fight, but better at a play;
Godlike in giving, but the devil to pay.
On a Cast of Sheridan's Hand.
[520]
Though an angel should write, still 't is devils must print.
The Fudges in England. Letter iii.
Fly not yet; 't is just the hour
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night
And maids who love the moon.
Fly not yet.
Oh stay! oh stay!
Joy so seldom weaves a chain
Like this to-night, that oh 't is pain
To break its links so soon.
Fly not yet.
When did morning ever break,
And find such beaming eyes awake?
Fly not yet.
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
Oh think not my Spirits are always as light.
Rich and rare were the gems she wore,
And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore.
Rich and rare were the Gems she wore.
There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.
The Meeting of the Waters.
Oh, weep for the hour
When to Eveleen's bower
The lord of the valley with false vows came.
Eveleen's Bower.
Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?
Come, send round the Wine.
No, the heart that has truly lov'd never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turn'd when he rose.
Believe me, if all those endearing young Charms.
[521]
The moon looks
On many brooks
"The brook can see no moon but this."[521:1]
While gazing on the Moon's Light.
And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen,
The maiden herself will steal after it soon.
Ill Omens.
'T is sweet to think that where'er we rove
We are sure to find something blissful and dear;
And that when we 're far from the lips we love,
We 've but to make love to the lips we are near.
'T is sweet to think.
'T is believ'd that this harp which I wake now for thee
Was a siren of old who sung under the sea.
The Origin of the Harp.
But there 's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream.
Love's Young Dream.
To live with them is far less sweet
Than to remember thee.[521:2]
I saw thy Form.
Eyes of unholy blue.
By that Lake whose gloomy Shore.
'T is the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone.
The Last Rose of Summer.
When true hearts lie wither'd
And fond ones are flown,
Oh, who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
The Last Rose of Summer.
And the best of all ways
To lengthen our days
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear.
The Young May Moon.
[522]
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
Farewell! But whenever you welcome the Hour.
Thus, when the lamp that lighted
The traveller at first goes out,
He feels awhile benighted,
And looks around in fear and doubt.
But soon, the prospect clearing,
By cloudless starlight on he treads,
And thinks no lamp so cheering
As that light which Heaven sheds.
I 'd mourn the Hopes.
No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us,
All earth forgot, and all heaven around us.
Come o'er the Sea.
The light that lies
In woman's eyes.
The Time I 've lost in wooing.
My only books
Were woman's looks,—
And folly 's all they 've taught me.
The Time I 've lost in wooing.
I know not, I ask not, if guilt 's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee whatever thou art.
Come, rest in this Bosom.
To live and die in scenes like this,
With some we 've left behind us.
As slow our Ship.
Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious, and free,
First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea.
Remember Thee.
All that 's bright must fade,—
The brightest still the fleetest;
All that 's sweet was made
But to be lost when sweetest.
All that 's Bright must fade.
[523]
Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!
Those Evening Bells.
Oft in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken.
Oft in the Stilly Night.
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.
Oft in the Stilly Night.
As half in shade and half in sun
This world along its path advances,
May that side the sun 's upon
Be all that e'er shall meet thy glances!
Peace be around Thee.
If I speak to thee in friendship's name,
Thou think'st I speak too coldly;
If I mention love's devoted flame,
Thou say'st I speak too boldly.
How shall I woo?
A friendship that like love is warm;
A love like friendship, steady.
How shall I woo?
The bird let loose in Eastern skies,
Returning fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam;
[524]But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.
Oh that I had Wings.
This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,—
There 's nothing true but Heaven.
This World is all a fleeting Show.
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumph'd,—his people are free.
Sound the loud Timbrel.
As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean
Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,
So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion,
Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee.
As still to the star of its worship, though clouded,
The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea,
So dark when I roam in this wintry world shrouded,
The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.
The Heart's Prayer.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.
Come, ye Disconsolate.
Oh call it by some better name,
For friendship sounds too cold.
Oh call it by some better Name.
When twilight dews are falling soft
Upon the rosy sea, love,
I watch the star whose beam so oft
Has lighted me to thee, love.
When Twilight Dews.
[525]
I give thee all,—I can no more,
Though poor the off'ring be;
My heart and lute are all the store
That I can bring to thee.[525:1]
My Heart and Lute.
Who has not felt how sadly sweet
The dream of home, the dream of home,
Steals o'er the heart, too soon to fleet,
When far o'er sea or land we roam?
The Dream of Home.
To Greece we give our shining blades.
Evenings in Greece. First Evening.
When thus the heart is in a vein
Of tender thought, the simplest strain
Can touch it with peculiar power.
Evenings in Greece. First Evening.
If thou would'st have me sing and play
As once I play'd and sung,
First take this time-worn lute away,
And bring one freshly strung.
If Thou would'st have Me sing and play.
To sigh, yet feel no pain;
To weep, yet scarce know why;
To sport an hour with Beauty's chain,
Then throw it idly by.
The Blue Stocking.
Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are!
From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins,
That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty's war,
Be wasted for tyrants, or stagnate in chains.
On the Entry of the Austrians into Naples, 1821.
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
The past, the future,—two eternities!
Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
[526]
There 's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream.
Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
Like the stain'd web that whitens in the sun,
Grow pure by being purely shone upon.
Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
One morn a Peri at the gate
Of Eden stood disconsolate.
Paradise and the Peri.
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,—
One minute of heaven is worth them all.
Paradise and the Peri.
But the trail of the serpent is over them all.
Paradise and the Peri.
Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour,
I 've seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower
But 't was the first to fade away.
I never nurs'd a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well
And love me, it was sure to die.
The Fire-Worshippers.
Oh for a tongue to curse the slave
Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
Comes o'er the councils of the brave,
And blasts them in their hour of might!
The Fire-Worshippers.
Beholding heaven, and feeling hell.
The Fire-Worshippers.
As sunshine broken in the rill,
Though turned astray, is sunshine still.
The Fire-Worshippers.
Farewell, farewell to thee, Araby's daughter!
Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea.
The Fire-Worshippers.
Alas! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love!
Hearts that the world in vain had tried,
And sorrow but more closely tied;
That stood the storm when waves were rough,
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,
[527]Like ships that have gone down at sea
When heaven was all tranquillity.
Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem.
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.
Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem.
And oh if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this!
Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem.
Humility, that low, sweet root
From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
The Loves of the Angels. The Third Angel's Story.
[518:1] See Waller, page 220.
[519:1] This goin ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur.—Lowell: The Biglow Papers. First Series, No. 11.
[521:1] This image was suggested by the following thought, which occurs
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