Quotes to inspire and reflect

And folly’s all they’ve taught me.

The light that lies In woman’s eyes, Has been my heart’s undoing.

Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear.

You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. 1

The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone, In the ranks of death you’ll find him. His father’s sword he has girded on, And his wild harp slung behind him.

’Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone.

But there’s nothing half so sweet in life As love’s young dream.

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms Which I gaze on so fondly today, Were to change by tomorrow and fleet in my arms, Like fairy gifts fading away, Thou would’st still be ador’d as this moment thou art, Let thy loveliness fade as it will, And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart Would entwine itself verdantly still.

And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

The harp that once through Tara’s halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls As if that soul were fled.

Oh, breathe not his name! let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonor’d his relics are laid.

Go where glory waits thee! But while fame elates thee, Oh, still remember me!

Who first invented work, and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down?

Faintly as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.

A poet lies, or that which once seemed he— Oh, lift a thought in prayer for S.T.C.! That he, who many a year, with toil of breath, Found death in life, may here find life in death.

I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days— All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I counted two and seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks.

Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, And Hope without an object cannot live.

Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree.

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair— The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing— And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Trochee trips from long to short; From long to long in solemn sort Slow Spondee stalks.

With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots, Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots.

A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the earth.

Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud— We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colors a suffusion from that light.

On that green light that lingers in the west: I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

O lady! we receive but what we give And in our life alone does Nature live.

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

In the hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery column; In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows, Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.

A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight ’twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honeydew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion.

A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

Forth from his dark and lonely hiding place (Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism, Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon, Drops his blue-fringèd lids, and holds them close, And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, Cries out, “Where is it?”

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round.

Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

The frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind.

Alas! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth; And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny; and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.

That saints will aid if men will call: For the blue sky bends over all!

A sight to dream of, not to tell!

Her gentle limbs did she undress, And lay down in her loveliness.

The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can.

’Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way.