19th-century Poet Quotes

There is only one proper way to wear a beautiful dress: to forget you are wearing it.

In the mind all things are written in pictures - there is no alphabetical combination of letters and words; all things are pictures and symbols.

Richard Jefferies
Richard Jefferies
As I heard the sweet lark sing
In the clear air of the day.

Samuel Ferguson
Samuel Ferguson
I believe if I should die,
And you should kiss my eyelids where I lie
Cold, dead, and dumb to all the world contains,
The folded orbs would open at thy breath,
And from its exile in the Isles of Death
Life would come gladly back along my veins.

Let not my death be long,
But light
As a bird's swinging;
Happy decision in the height
Of song —
Then flight
From off the ultimate bough!
And let my wing be strong,
And my last note the first
Of another's singing.
See to it, Thou!

Leonora Speyer
Leonora Speyer
As I go musing through this mournful land
Soothed by the pine-tree's solemn harmony,
Thy well-loved image comes and walks by me.
I seem to hold thee by the gentle hand
And talk of things I dimly understand,
That thy dear spirit set to mine may be
As to an intricate lock the simple key.

In the gloaming, Oh my darling!
When the lights are dim and low,
And the quiet shadows falling
Softly come and softly go.

Give me, give me God's own country! there to live and there to die,

Thomas Bracken
Thomas Bracken
The young don't know what age is, and the old forget what youth was.

Who dreads to the dust returning?
Who shrinks from the sable shore,
Where the high and haughty yearning
Of the soul can sting no more?

It came as a boon and a blessing to men,
The peaceful, the pure, the victorious pen!

I shall ever remember the gentleness of your manners and the wild originality of your countenance.

Claire Clairmont
Claire Clairmont
The sweetest flower that blows,
I give you as we part.
For you it is a Rose,
For me it is my heart.

The measure of capacity is the measure of sphere to either man or woman.

Is your voice silence?
When you are not singing a song then I hear your song's melody clearly!
Your voice is silence. Is your face darkness?
When I shut my eyes then I see your face clearly!
Your face is darkness. Is your shadow light?
Your shadow is cast on the dark window after the moon has gone down!
Your shadow is light.

There are other tears, bright, clear, untroubled,
Shining as the sun, untouched of care.

Zabel Sibil Asadour
Zabel Sibil Asadour
The mysterious power of harmony
Will expiate a heavy delusion
And tame a revolting desire.

Yevgeny Baratynsky
Yevgeny Baratynsky
I saw the spires of Oxford
As I was passing by,
The grey spires of Oxford
Against a pearl-grey sky;
My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.
For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?

Wee Willie Winkie rins through the town,
Up stairs and doon stairs in his nicht-gown,
Tirling at the window, crying at the lock,
"Are the weans in their bed, for it's now ten o'clock?"

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.

I do not know the speech
Of this cool land,
I cannot keep its pace.

Else Lasker-Schüler
Else Lasker-Schüler
O time! whose verdicts mock our own, the only righteous judge art thou!

Guide Thou my hand within that hand of Thine —
Thy wounded hand! — until its tremblings take
Strength from Thy touch.

Say, boys! if you give me just another whiskey I'll be glad, And I'll draw right here a picture of the face that drove me mad. Give me that piece of chalk with which you mark the baseball score, You shall see the lovely Madeleine upon the bar-room floor.