HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW QUOTES II
American poet (1807-1882)
A quiet smile played around his lips,
As the eddies and dimples of the tide
Play round the bows of ships.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Building of the Ship"
Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work, rather than its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as the bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
When we walk towards the sun of Truth, all shadows are cast behind us.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Children's Hour"
Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning -- an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Kavanagh
The twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
Flash the white caps of the sea.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Twilight"
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"A Psalm of Life"
Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Elegiac Verse"
Art is the child of Nature; yes,
Her darling child, in whom we trace
The features of the mother's face,
Her aspect and her attitude,
All her majestic loveliness
Chastened and softened and subdued
Into a more attractive grace,
And with a human sense imbued.
He is the greatest artist, then,
Whether of pencil or of pen,
Who follows Nature.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Kéramos
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Snow-Flakes
Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?
Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught
The dialect they speak, where melodies
Alone are the interpreters of thought?
Whose household words are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Tales of a Wayside Inn
Not in the clamour of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Poets"
Love makes its record in deeper colors as we grow out of childhood into manhood; as the Emperors signed their names in green ink when under age, but when of age, in purple.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm Upon his harp,
to deaden its vibrations.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The Golden Legend
The sentence of the first murderer was pronounced by the Supreme Judge of the universe. Was it death? No, it was life. "A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth;" and "Whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold."
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
The tragic element in poetry is like Saturn in alchemy, -- the Malevolent, the Destroyer of Nature; but without it no true Aurum Potabile, or Elixir of Life, can be made.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
In youth all doors open outward; in old age all open inward.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
Love is the root of creation; God's essence; worlds without number
Lie in his bosom like children; he made them for this purpose only.
Only to love and to be loved again.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Children of the Lord's Supper"
What discord should we bring into the universe if our prayers were all answered! Then we should govern the world, and not God. And do you think we should govern it better?
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature, -- were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk