Quotes
Quotes about Art
Only I discern
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.
Was there nought better than to enjoy?
No feat which, done, would make time break,
And let us pent-up creatures through
Into eternity, our due?
No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with for evil so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.
Progress, man's distinctive mark alone,
Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are;
Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.
It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce;
It's fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That after Last returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once prove accurst.
It is the glory and good of Art
That Art remains the one way possible
Of speaking truth,--to mouths like mine, at least.
"With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart"once more!
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!
? John Bartlett, compWhat are the wild waves saying,
Sister, the whole day long,
That ever amid our playing
I hear but their low, lone song?
Yes! but there's something greater
That speaks to the heart alone:
'T is the voice of the great Creator
Dwells in that mighty tone.
? John Bartlett, compBut whether on the scaffold high
Or in the battle's van,
The fittest place where man can die
Is where he dies for man!
O majesty unspeakable and dread!
Wert thou less mighty than Thou art,
Thou wert, O Lord, too great for our belief,
Too little for our heart.
Hark! Hark! my soul, angelic songs are swelling
O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat shore;
How sweet the truth those blessed strains are telling
Of that new life when sin shall be no more.
Old Tubal Cain was a man of might
In the days when earth was young.
I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A truth and noonday light to thee.
Art is man's nature; nature is God's art.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Life's but a means unto an end; that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things,--God.
I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the range of sight,
New earths and skies and seas around,
And in my day the sun doth pale his light.
She with one breath attunes the spheres,
And also my poor human heart.
For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart,
And makes his pulses fly,
To catch the thrill of a happy voice
And the light of a pleasant eye.
Let us weep in our darkness, but weep not for him!
Not for him who, departing, leaves millions in tears!
Not for him who has died full of honor and years!
Not for him who ascended Fame's ladder so high:
From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky.
How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start
When memory plays an old tune on the heart!
A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;
And, deepening still the dreamlike charm,
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.
This was the truest warrior
That ever buckled sword;
This the most gifted poet
That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced with his golden pen
On the deathless page truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.
