Quotes from lazarus emma

No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define -- what is a bird.

In these transparent-clouded, gentle skies, Wherethrough the moist beams of the soft June sun Might any moment break, no sorrow lies, No note of grief in swollen brooks that run, No hint of woe in this subdued, calm tone Of all the prospect unto dreamy eyes.

Through all these years my couch thou didst prepare. Thou art supreme Love--kiss me--I am thine!

The gray, austere old earth renews her youth With dew-lines, sunshine, gossamer, and haze. How still she lies and dreams, and veils the truth, While all is fresh as in the early days!

There is no comfort looking forth nor back, The present gives the lie to all her past.

Then Nature shaped a poet's heart -- a lyre From out whose chords the lightest breeze that blows Drew trembling music, wakening sweet desire.

The soul, at peace, reflects the peace without, Forgetting grief as sunset skies forget The morning's transient shower.

Sweet empty sky of June without a stain, Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain, That each dark copse and hollow overfills; The rippling laugh of unseen, rain-fed rills, Weeds delicate-flowered, white and pink and gold, A murmur and a singing manifold.

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.

As the blind Milton's memory of light The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone, Wrought joys for them surpassing all things known In our restricted sphere of sound and sight-- So while the glaring streets of brick and stone Vex with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night, I will give rein to Fancy, taking flight From dismal now and here, and dwell alone, With new-enfranchised senses.

When the stunned soul can first lift tired eyes On her changed world of ruin, waste, and wrack, Ah, what a pang of aching sharp surprise Brings all sweet memories of the lost past back, With wild, self-pitying grief of one betrayed, Duped in a land of dreams where Truth is dead!

Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned.

Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains-- The exiles by the streams of Babylon.

Naught is too small and soft to turn and sting.

Hark to the music! How beneath the strain Of reckless revelry, vibrates and sobs One fundamental chord of constant pain, The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs.

The little and the great are joined in one By God's great force. The wondrous golden sun Is linked unto the glow-worm's tiny spark; The eagle soars to heaven in his flight; And in those realms of space, all bathed in light, Soar none except the eagle and the lark.

Not while the fever of the blood is strong, The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless The poet-soul to help and soothe with song. Not then she bids his trembling lips express The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain. Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brain One full-stringed lyre attuned to happiness.

The children of the prophets of the Lord, Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate. Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state, The West refused them, and the East abhorred. No anchorage the known world could afford.