Quotes
Quotes about Light
Bend low, O dusky Night,
And give my spirit rest,
Hold me to your deep breast,
And put old cares to flight.
Give back the lost delight
That once my soul possest,
When Love was loveliest.
When I'm playful, I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic ocean for whales. I scratch my head with the lightning and purr myself to sleep with the thunder.
Probable nor'-east to sou'-west winds, varying to the southard and westard and eastard and points between; high and low barometer, sweeping round from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes with thunder and lightning.
Somewhere--in desolate wind-swept space--
In Twilight-land--in No-man's land--
Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,
And bade each other stand.
"And who are you?" cried one, agape,
Shuddering in the gloaming light.
"I know not," said the second Shape,
"I only died last night."
Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time with a gift of tears,
Grief with a glass that ran,
Pleasure with pain for leaven,
Summer with flowers that fell,
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And Madness risen from hell,
Strength without hands to smite,
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.
And lo, between the sundawn and the sun
His day's work and his night's work are undone:
And lo, between the nightfall and the light,
He is not, and none knoweth of such an one.
Who knows but on their sleep may rise
Such light as never heaven let through
To lighten earth from Paradise?
I would rather walk with God in the dark than go alone in the light.
Whenever a snowflake leaves the sky,
It turns and turns to say "Good-by!
Good-by, dear clouds, so cool and gray!"
Then lightly travels on its way.
But when a snowflake, brave and meek,
Lights on a rosy maiden's cheek,
It starts--"How warm and soft the day!"
"'T is summer!" and it melts away.
I saw the lightning's gleaming rod
Reach forth and write upon the sky
The awful autograph of God.
Virginal shy lights,
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,
When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,
Of the heavenly woods and glades,
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn.
Not from the whole wide world I chose thee,
Sweetheart, light of the land and the sea!
The wide, wide world could not inclose thee,
For thou art the whole wide world to me.
Through love to light! Oh wonderful the way
That leads from darkness to the perfect day!
The windy lights of Autumn flare;
I watch the moonlit sails go by;
I marvel how men toil and fare,
The weary business that they play!
Their voyaging is vanity,
And fairy gold is all their gain,
And all the winds of winter cry,
"My Love returns no more again."
Behind the western bars
The shrouded day retreats,
And unperceived the stars
Steal to their sovran seats.
And whiter grows the foam,
The small moon lightens more;
And as I turn me home,
My shadow walks before.
The love of man and woman is as fire
To warm, to light, but surely to consume
And self-consuming die...
But comrade-love is as a welding blast
Of candid flame and ardent temperature:
Glowing more fervent, it doth bind more fast;
And melting both but makes the union sure.
The dross alone is burnt--till at the last
The steel, if cold, is one and strong and pure.
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
Wynken, Blynken and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe--
Sailed on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew.
The fire upon the hearth is low,
And there is stillness everywhere,
And, like winged spirits, here and there
The firelight shadows fluttering go.
? John Bartlett, compAnd also there's a little star
So white a virgin's it must be:--
Perhaps the lamp my love in heaven
Hangs out to light the way for me.
One naked star has waded through
The purple shadows of the night,
And faltering as falls the dew
It drips its misty light.
? John Bartlett, compThe Night has a thousand eyes,
And the Day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
Men have dulled their eyes with sin,
And dimmed the light of heaven with doubt,
And built their temple-walls to shut thee in,
And framed their iron creeds to shut thee out.
Death is an angel with two faces:
To us he turns
A face of terror, blighting all things fair;
The other burns
With glory of the stars, and love is there.
