Quotes
Quotes about Art
Here's a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate;
And whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate.
The heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old!
The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.
His heart was one of those which most enamour us,--
Wax to receive, and marble to retain.
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.
Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones,
Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.
In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her,
Save thine "incomparable oil," Macassar!
The languages, especially the dead,
The sciences, and most of all the abstruse,
The arts, at least all such as could be said
To be the most remote from common use.
Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;
'T is woman's whole existence.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three
To make a new Thermopylæ.
'T is strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.
The Devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice,
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.
The heart bowed down by weight of woe
To weakest hope will cling.
Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother's, when she feels
For the first time her first-born's breath!
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke!
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm!
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet song, and dance, and wine!
And thou art terrible!--the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know or dream or fear
Of agony are thine.
There is an evening twilight of the heart,
When its wild passion-waves are lulled to rest.
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried.
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.
With hue like that when some great painter dips
His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.
O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth.
The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn.
What! alive, and so bold, O earth?
Those who inflict must suffer, for they see
The work of their own hearts, and this must be
Our chastisement or recompense.
Why should we faint and fear to live alone,
Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die?
Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh.
Alas for love, if thou wert all,
And naught beyond, O Earth!
I had a hat. It was not all a hat,--
Part of the brim was gone:
Yet still I wore it on.
Loveliest of lovely things are they
On earth that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
