Quotes to inspire and reflect

Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was white as leprosy, The nightmare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man’s blood with cold.

About, about, in reel and rout The death fires danced at night.

I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! a sail!

The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea.

Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.

As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound!

“God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus!— Why look’st thou so?”—“With my crossbow I shot the Albatross.”

And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald.

The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she.

The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top.

The Wedding Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon.

He holds him with his glittering eye— The Wedding Guest stood still, And listens like a three years’ child: The Mariner hath his will.

The guests are met, the feast is set: May’st hear the merry din.

Be but organic harps diversely fram’d, That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the Soul of each, and God of All?

It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. “By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?”

Oh, poverty parts good company.

O the one life within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere— Methinks, it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so filled.

Vacant heart, and hand, and eye, Easy live and quiet die.

Time will rust the sharpest sword, Time will consume the strongest cord; That which molders hemp and steel, Mortal arm and nerve must feel.

Oh, Brignal banks are wild and fair, And Greta woods are green, And you may gather garlands there Would grace a summer queen.

A mother’s pride, a father’s joy.

Respect was mingled with surprise, And the stern joy which warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel.

Where, where was Roderick then! One blast upon his bugle horn Were worth a thousand men!

And, Saxon—I am Roderick Dhu!

Come one, come all! this rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I.

Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances! 1

Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, Thou art gone, and forever!

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o’er, Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Dream of battled fields no more, Days of danger, nights of waking.

The will to do, the soul to dare.

The stag at eve had drunk his fill, Where danced the moon on Monan’s rill, And deep his midnight lair had made In lone Glenartney’s hazel shade.

In listening mood she seemed to stand, The guardian Naiad of the strand.

O Woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!

To all, to each, a fair goodnight, And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light!

To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall?

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!

With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the West, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best.

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

And come he slow, or come he fast, It is but Death who comes at last.

But search the land of living men, Where wilt thou find their like again?

Stood for his country’s glory fast, And nail’d her colors to the mast!

November’s sky is chill and drear, November’s leaf is red and sear.

In peace, Love tunes the shepherd’s reed; In war, he mounts the warrior’s steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen; In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love.

O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood; Land of the mountain and the flood!

I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as ’twas said to me.