Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne,
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
At the piping of all hands,
When the judgment-signal's spread--
When the islands and the lands
And the seas give up their dead,
And the South and North shall come;
When the sinner is dismayed,
And the just man is afraid,
Then Heaven be thy aid,
Poor Tom.
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
Letters of Junius. Letter xlii. Affair of the Falkland Islands.
I am near the end of the wine, but out there, the big wine is being poured â thin, slow, grey. Never more shall I taste the oncoming of this particular darkness. But I shall not be sorry to go. I am not seduced to this life by the dainty lusts, clothed in cold green and clean linen, of an English spring. If you plunge into that dark there, you will emerge at length into a raging sun and all the fabled islands of my East. And that is what I shall be doing tonight, off like a bird. Letâs dwell a space on the irony of a poetâs desperately winging out the last of his sweetness while the corrosives closed in.
This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere: the dew is never all dried at once: a shower is forever falling, vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.
I feel we are all islandsâin a common sea.
Far clouds of feathery gold, Shaded with deepest purple, gleam Like islands on a dark blue sea.
I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else - I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.
Ay, many flowering islands lie In the waters of wide Agony.
The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.
Sundays, quiet islands on the tossing seas of life.
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. â¢John Muir Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed. â¢William Cowper No rest is worth anything except the rest that is earned. â¢Jean Paul Sundays, quiet islands on the tossing seas of life. â¢S. W. Duffield Rest is the sweet sauce of labor. â¢Plutarch I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy! â¢Louise A. Bogan A friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. â¢Walter Winchell One dog barks at something, the rest bark at him. â¢Chinese Proverb How beautiful is it to do nothing, and then rest afterward. â¢Proverb The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest till it has gained a hearing.
How sweet to move at summer's eve By Clyde's meandering stream, When Sol in joy is seen to leave The earth with crimson beam; When islands that wandered far Above his sea couch lie, And here and there some gem-like star Re-opes its sparkling eye.