Quotes from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, For the lesson thou hast taught! Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought

So disasters come not singly; But as if they watched and waited, Scanning one another's motions, When the first descends, the others Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise Round their victim, sick and wounded, First a shadow, then a sorrow, Till the air is dark with anguish.

It is the mystery of the unknown That fascinates us; we are children still Wayward and wistful; with one hand we cling To the familiar things we call our own, And with the other, resolute of will, Grope in the dark for what the day will bring

Poor, deluded Shawondasee! 'T was no woman that you gazed at, 'T was no maiden that you sighed for, 'T was the prairie dandelion That through all the dreamy Summer You had gazed at with such longing, You had sighed for with such passion, And had puffed away forever, Blown into the air with sighing. Ah! deluded Shawondasee!

All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,   All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing,   All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!   And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom,   Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, Father, I thank thee!

STILL stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,   Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.

Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals or forts.

Think not, because no man sees Such things will remain unseen

And oft the blessed time foretells When all men shall be free; And musical, as silver bells, Their falling chains shall be.

Every arrow that flies feels the pull of the earth.

Tis the center to which all gravitates. One finds no rest elswhere than here. There may be other cities that please us for a while, but Rome alone completely satisfies. It becomes to all a second native land by predilection, and not by accident of birth alone.

Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,   Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever,   Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy,   Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors,   Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey!

Anon from the castle walls The crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, Like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, The Black Eagle with double head; And a shout ascends on high, For men's souls are tired of the Turks, And their wicked ways and works, That have made of Ak-Hissar A city of the plague; And the loud, exultant cry That echoes wide and far Is: Long live Scanderbeg!

The nearer the dawn, the darker the night

Nothing useless is, or low; Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest.

Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice   Triumphs;

His imagination seemed still to exhaust itself in running, before it tried to leap the ditch. While he mused, the fire burned in other brains. Other hands wrote the books he dreamed about. He freely used his good ideas in conversation, and in letters; and they were straightway wrought into the texture of other men's books, and so lost to him for ever.

Look, then, into thine heart, and write!

The student has his Rome, his whole glowing Italy, within the four walls of his library. He has in his books the ruins of an antique world and the glories of a modern one.

O, never from the memory of my heart Your dear, paternal image shall depart, Who while on earth, ere yet by death surprised, Taught me how mortals are immortalized; How grateful am I for that patient care All my life long my language shall declare.

I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it.

Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,   Onward through life he goes; Each morning sees some task begin,   Each evening sees it close Something attempted, something done,   Has earned a night's repose.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call Death. She is not dead,--the child of our affection,-- But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule. Excerpt from the poem Resignation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow