Quotes
Quotes - Campbell
'T is distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
But Hope, the charmer, linger'd still behind.
O Heaven! he cried, my bleeding country save!
Hope for a season bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shriek'd as Kosciusko fell!
On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow,
His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below.
And rival all but Shakespeare's name below.
Who hath not own'd, with rapture-smitten frame,
The power of grace, the magic of a name?
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh what were man?--a world without a sun.
The world was sad, the garden was a wild,
And man the hermit sigh'd--till woman smiled.
While Memory watches o'er the sad review
Of joys that faded like the morning dew.
There shall he love when genial morn appears,
Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears.
And muse on Nature with a poet's eye.
That gems the starry girdle of the year.
Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul!
O star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there,
To waft us home the message of despair?
But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in.
Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind,
But leave, oh leave the light of Hope behind!
What though my winged hours of bliss have been
Like angel visits, few and far between.
The hunter and the deer a shade.
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!
'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
With his back to the field and his feet to the foe,
And leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.
And rustic life and poverty
Grow beautiful beneath his touch.
Whose lines are mottoes of the heart,
Whose truths electrify the sage.
Ye mariners of England,
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
