Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

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There rises the moon, broad and tranquil, through the branches of a walnut tree on a hill opposite. I apostrophize it in the words of Faust; "O gentle moon, that lookest for the last time upon my agonies!" --or something to that effect.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The swallow is come! The swallow is come! O, fair are the seasons, and light Are the days that she brings, With her dusky wings, And her bosom snowy white!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
So disasters come not singly; But as if they watched and waited, Scanning one another's motions, When the first descends, the others Follow, follow, gathering flock-wiseRound their victim, sick and wounded, First a shadow, then a sorrow, Till the air is dark with anguish.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In the life of every man there are sudden transitions of feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if some magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these changes may have been long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently without sufficient cause.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Midnight! the outpost of advancing day! The frontier town and citadel of night!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I know not how it is, but during a voyage I collect books as a ship does barnacles.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How can I teach your children gentleness and mercy to the weak, and reverence for life, which in its nakedness and excess, is still a gleam of God's omnipotence, when by your laws, your actions and your speech, you contradict the very things I teach?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The secret studies of an author are the sunken piers upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, spanning the dark waters of oblivion. They are out of sight, but without them no superstructure can stand secure.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
And Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying: "Here is a story-book Thy Father has written for thee." "Come, wander with me," she said, "Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day, Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining, Buds that open only to decay.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
We waste our best years in distilling the sweetest flowers of life into potions which, after all, do not immortalize, but only intoxicate.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
People of a lively imagination are generally curious, and always so when a little in love.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Begirt with many a blazing star, Stood the great giant Algebar, Orion, the hunter of the beast!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A millstone and the human heart are driven ever round,
If they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It is Lucifer, The son of mystery; And since God suffers him to be, He too, is God's minister, And labors for some good By us not understood.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice triumphs.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Maiden, that read'st this simple rhyme, Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay; Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime, For oh, it is not always May!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ah, yes, the sea is still and deep, All things within its bosom sleep! A single step, and all is o'er, A plunge, a bubble, and no more.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ah, the souls of those that die Are but sunbeams lifted higher.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away Over the snowy peaks!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In the thickets and the meadows Piped the bluebird, the Owaissa...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Built his great heart into these sculptured stones, And with him toiled his children, and their lives Were builded, with his own, into the walls, As offerings unto God.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Anon from the castle walls The crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, Like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, The Black Eagle with double head. And shouts ascend on high.....'' Long live Scanderbeg.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Some feelings are quite untranslatable; no language has yet been found for them. They gleam upon us beautifully through the dim twilight of fancy, and yet when we bring them close to us, and hold them up to the light of reason, lose their beauty all at once, as glow worms which gleam with such a spiritual light in the shadows of evening, when brought in where the candles are lighted, are found to be only worms like so many others.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For bells are the voice of the church; They have tones that touch and search The hearts of young and old.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
And the bright faces of my young companions
Are wrinkled like my own, or are no more.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
What shall I say to you? What can I say Better than silence is?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Our pleasures and our discontents, Are rounds by which we may ascend.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow