Thomas Campbell Quotes

69 Sourced Quotes

Beauty's witching sway is now to me a star that's fallen-a dream that's passed away.

Thomas Campbell
"Come back! come back!" he cried in grief
"Across this stormy water;
And I'll forgive your Highland chief,
My daughter! O my daughter!"

Thomas Campbell
And rustic life and poverty
Grow beautiful beneath his touch.

Thomas Campbell
Absence! is not the soul torn by it
From more than light, or life, or breath?
'Tis Lethe's gloom, but not its quiet,—
The pain without the peace of death!

Thomas Campbell
Can all that optics teach, unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow? When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws! And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

Thomas Campbell
An original something, fair maid, you would win me
To write—but how shall I begin?
For I fear I have nothing original in me—
Excepting Original Sin.

Thomas Campbell
Another's sword has laid him low,
Another's and another's;
And every hand that dealt the blow—
Ah me! it was a brother's!

Thomas Campbell
Auspicious Hope! in thy sweet garden grow
Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe:
Won by their sweets, in nature's languid hour,
The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower; There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing,
What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring!
What viewless forms th' Æolian organ play,
And sweep the furrow'd lines of anxious thought away! Angel of life! thy glittering wings explore
Earth's loneliest bounds, and Ocean's wildest shore.

Thomas Campbell
Ye mariners of England,
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!

Thomas Campbell
When o'er the green undeluged earth
Heaven's covenant thou didst shine,
How came the world's grey fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign. And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child
To bless the bow of God.

Thomas Campbell
There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin,
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill;
For his country he sigh'd, when at twilight repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill.

Thomas Campbell
Few, few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.

Thomas Campbell
Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day!
For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
But man cannot cover what God would reveal:
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.

Thomas Campbell
On the green banks of Shannon, when Sheelah was nigh,
No blithe Irish lad was so happy as I;
No harp like my own could so cheerily play,
And wherever I went was my poor dog Tray.

Thomas Campbell
Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shrieked—as Kosciusko fell!

Thomas Campbell
Proposing a toast to Napoleon Bonaparte at a literary dinner:
Gentlemen, you must not mistake me. I admit that the French Emperor is a tyrant. I admit he is a monster. I admit that he is the sworn foe of our nation, and, if you will, of the whole human race. But, gentlemen, we must be just to our great enemy. We must not forget that he once shot a bookseller.

Thomas Campbell
On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

Thomas Campbell
A chieftain to the Highlands bound
Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry!
And I'll give thee a silver pound
To row us o'er the ferry!"

Thomas Campbell
Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art. — Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given,
For happy spirits to alight,
Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Thomas Campbell
With thee, sweet Hope! resides the heav'nly light,
That pours remotest rapture on the sight:
Thine is the charm of life's bewilder'd way.
That calls each slumb'ring passion into play.

Thomas Campbell
Whose lines are mottoes of the heart,
Whose truths electrify the sage.

Thomas Campbell
Methinks, thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang
On earth deliver'd from the deep,
And the first poet sang. Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam:
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme!

Thomas Campbell
How glorious is thy girdle cast
O'er mountain, tower, and town,
Or mirror'd in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down! As fresh in yon horizon dark,
As young thy beauties seem,
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam. For, faithful to its sacred page,
Heaven still rebuilds thy span,
Nor lets the type grow pale with age
That first spoke peace to man.

Thomas Campbell
Ye are brothers! ye are men!
And we conquer but to save.

Thomas Campbell
Thus, while Elijah's burning wheels prepare,
From Carmel's height, to sweep the fields of air,
The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began,
Dropt on the world — a sacred gift to man.

Thomas Campbell
What potent spirit guides the raptur'd eye
To pierce the shades of dim futurity?
Can Wisdom lend, with all her heav'nly pow'r,
The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour? Ah, no! she darkly sees the fate of man—
Her dim horizon bounded to a span;
Or, if she hold an image to the view,
Tis nature pictur'd too severely true.

Thomas Campbell
Oh! once the harp of Innisfail
Was strung full high to notes of gladness;
But yet it often told a tale
Of more prevailing sadness.

Thomas Campbell
Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame,
The power of grace, the magic of a name?

Thomas Campbell
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn,
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.

Thomas Campbell
Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

Thomas Campbell