Quotes from Henry Abbey

I only ask to drink experience deep; And, in the sad, sweet goblet of my years, To find love poured with all its smiles and tears, And quaffing this, I too shall sweetly sleep.

Envy is the coward side of Hate, and all her ways are bleak and desolate.

Though Duty's face is stern, her path is best: they sweetly sleep who die upon her breast.

I had a vision of mankind to be: I saw no grated windows, heard no roar From iron mouths of war on land or sea; Ambition broke the sway of peace no more. Out of the chaos of ill-will had come Cosmos, the Age of Good, Millennium!

I shall not say, our life is all in vain, For peace may cheer the desolated hearth; But well I know that, on this weary earth, Round each joy-island is a sea of pain.

The artist labors while he may, But finds at best too brief the day; And, tho' his works outlast the time And nation that they make sublime, He feels and sees that Nature knows Nothing of time in what she does, But has a leisure infinite Wherein to do her work aright.

O May! robed in your gown of flowers, Nun-like, gaze from your balmy cell, Under your crown of asphodel, And sentinel all the summer hours; Rising among your daisy bowers, Like Venus from her cradled shell!

So many poets die ere they are known, I pray you, hear me kindly for their sake. Not of the harp, but of the soul alone, Is the deep music all true minstrels make: Hear my soul's music, and I will beguile, With string and song, your festival awhile.

And once I knew a meditative rose that never raised its head from bowing down, yet drew its inspiration from the stars. It bloomed and faded here beside the road, and, being a poet, wrote on empty air with fragrance all the beauty of its soul.

Most men are prisoners at best, who some strong habit every drag about like chain and ball.

Behold the grapes and all the fruits that Autumn gives today, as robed in red and gold, she rules, the Empress of Decay!

O May! your cheeks are sunset skies, Which the lips of the verge shall press, And the amber clouds caress-- Drifting along in the light which lies Over your soul-lit, jasmine eyes, In all its golden tenderness!

As thoughts possess the fashion of the mood That gave them birth, so every deed we do, Partakes of our inborn disquietude That spurns the old and reaches toward the new.

The noblest works of human art and pride show that their makers were not satisfied.