Quotes to inspire and reflect

Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Aegean.

Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.

The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light Gleams, and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

That sweet city [Oxford] with her dreaming spires.

The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I.

Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born.

Are ye too changed, ye hills? See, ’tis no foot of unfamiliar men Tonight from Oxford up your pathway strays! Here came I often, often, in old days— Thyrsis [Arthur Hugh Clough] and I; we still had Thyrsis then.

Her cabined, ample spirit It fluttered and failed for breath. Tonight it doth inherit The vasty hall of death.

Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.

Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade.

Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that I did too!

Oh, born in days when wits were fresh and clear, And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; Before this strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims, Its heads o’ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was rife.

Who most has suffered, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne.

Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill.

Thou waitest for the spark from heaven: and we, Light half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed… Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose tomorrow the ground won today— Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?

But often in the world’s most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life.

And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well—but ’tis not true!

Yes, in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone .

The day in its hotness, The strife with the palm; The night in her silence, The stars in their calm.

Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes?

So, loath to suffer mute, We, peopling the void air, Make Gods to whom to impute The ills we ought to bear.

Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play; Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away.

We do not what we ought; What we ought not, we do; And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through.

Thou hast no right to bliss.

Be neither saint- nor sophist-led, but be a man!

Calm Soul of all things! make it mine To feel, amid the city’s jar, That there abides a peace of thine, Man did not make, and can not mar.

Hither and thither spins The windborne, mirroring soul; A thousand glimpses wins, And never sees a whole.

We cannot kindle when we will The fire that in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides.

Yet they, believe me, who await No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.

The world in which we live and move Outlasts aversion, outlasts love: Outlasts each effort, interest, hope, Remorse, grief, joy.

Fate gave, what Chance shall not control, His sad lucidity of soul.

Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world forever and aye.

Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below! Now my brothers call from the bay, Now the great winds shoreward blow, Now the salt tides seaward flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.

Strong is the soul, and wise, and beautiful: The seeds of godlike power are in us still: Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will.

Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge.

My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul, From first youth tested up to extreme old age, Business could not make dull, nor passion wild: Who saw life steadily and saw it whole.

What do I care that you are good? Be beautiful! and be sad! 11

O Death, old captain, it is time! raise the anchor! 9

What is that sad, dark island?—It is Cythera, They tell us, a country famous in song, Banal Eldorado of all the old bachelors. Look! after all, it is a poor land! 8

I am the wound and the knife! I am the blow and the cheek! I am the limbs and the wheel— The victim and the executioner! 6

Here is the charming evening, the criminal’s friend; It comes like an accomplice, with stealthy tread. 7

I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old. 5

There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, Richness, quietness and pleasure. 4

Perfumes, colors and sounds echo one another

The poet is like the prince of the clouds Who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer; Exiled on the ground in the midst of jeers, His giant wings prevent him from walking. 1

Hypocrite lecteur—mon semblable—mon frère [Hypocrite reader—my double—my brother]!

I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.

A noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.