Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes - Page 3

It is too late! Ah, nothing is too lateTill the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.Cato learned Greek at eighty; SophoclesWrote his grand Oedipus, and SimonidesBore off the prize of verse from his compeers,When each had numbered more than fourscore years,And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,Had but begun his Characters of Men.Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,Completed Faust when eighty years were past,These are indeed exceptions; but they showHow far the gulf-stream of our youth may flowInto the arctic regions of our lives.Where little else than life itself survives.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How Beautiful is the rain!After the dust and heat,In the broad and fiery street,In the narrow lane,How beautiful is the rain!How it clatters along the roofs,Like the tramp of hoofs!How it gushes and struggles outFrom the throat of the overflowing spout!Across the window-paneIt pours and pours;And swift and wide,With a muddy tide,Like a river down the gutter roarsThe rain, the welcome rain!-"Rain in Summer
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sadly as some old mediaeval knightGazed at the arms he could no longer wield,The sword two-handed and the shining shieldSuspended in the hall, and full in sight,While secret longings for the lost delightOf tourney or adventure in the fieldCame over him, and tears but half concealedTrembled and fell upon his beard of white,So I behold these books upon their shelf,My ornaments and arms of other days;Not wholly useless, though no longer used,For they remind me of my other self,Younger and stronger, and the pleasant waysIn which I walked, now clouded and confused.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The purpose of that apple tree is to grow a little new wood each year. That is what I plan to do.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Wisely the Hebrews admit no Present tense in their language;While we are speaking the word, it is is already the Past.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O, never from the memory of my heartYour 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 careAll my life long my language shall declare.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, our faith triumphant o’er our fears, are all with thee – are all with thee!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It is the mystery of the unknownThat fascinates us; we are children stillWayward and wistful; with one hand we clingTo the familiar things we call our own,And with the other, resolute of will,Grope in the dark for what the day will bring
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The writer of this legend then recordsIts ghostly application in these words:The image is the Adversary old,Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold;Our lusts and passions are the downward stairThat leads the soul from a diviner air;The archer, Death; the flaming jewel, Life;Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife;The knights and ladies all whose flesh and boneBy avarice have been hardened into stone;The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelfTempts from his books and from his nobler self.The scholar and the world! The endless strife,The discord in the harmonies of life!The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,And all the sweet serenity of books;The market-place, the eager love of gain,Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas,We sailed for the Hesperides,The land where golden apples grow;But that, ah! that was long ago.How far, since then, the ocean streamsHave swept us from that land of dreams,That land of fiction and of truth,The lost Atlantis of our youth!Whither, ah, whither? Are not theseThe tempest-haunted Orcades,Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar,And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!Here in thy harbors for a whileWe lower our sails; a while we restFrom the unending, endless quest.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A torn jacket is soon mended, but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day,Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,and silently steal away.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful soundSeems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught;Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thoughtAs Hermes with his lyre in sleep profoundThe hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound;For I am weary, and am overwroughtWith too much toil, with too much care distraught,And with the iron crown of anguish crowned.Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek,O peaceful Sleep! until from pain releasedI breathe again uninterrupted breath!Ah, with what subtile meaning did the GreekCall thee the lesser mystery at the feastWhereof the greater mystery is death!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The ceaseless rain is falling fast,And yonder gilded vane,Immovable for three days past,Points to the misty main,It drives me in upon myselfAnd to the fireside gleams,To pleasant books that crowd my shelf,And still more pleasant dreams,I read whatever bards have sungOf lands beyond the sea,And the bright days when I was youngCome thronging back to me.In fancy I can hear againThe Alpine torrent's roar,The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,The sea at Elsinore.I see the convent's gleaming wallRise from its groves of pine,And towers of old cathedrals tall,And castles by the Rhine.I journey on by park and spire,Beneath centennial trees,Through fields with poppies all on fire,And gleams of distant seas.I fear no more the dust and heat,No more I feel fatigue,While journeying with another's feetO'er many a lengthening league.Let others traverse sea and land,And toil through various climes,I turn the world round with my handReading these poets' rhymes.From them I learn whatever liesBeneath each changing zone,And see, when looking with their eyes,Better than with mine own.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Art is the child of nature in whom we trace the features of the mothers face.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O, how wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul! The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written upon his countenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice only; as God revealed himself to the prophet of old in the still, small voice; and in a voice from the burning bush. The soul of man is audible, not visible. A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal fountain, invisible to man!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Anon from the castle wallsThe 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-HissarA city of the plague;And the loud, exultant cryThat echoes wide and farIs: "Long live Scanderbeg!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Midnight! the outpost of advancing day!The frontier town and citadel of night!The watershed of Time, from which the streamsOf Yesterday and To-morrow take their way,One to the land of promise and of light,One to the land of darkness and of dreams!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Awake! arise! the hour is late! Angels are knocking at thy door!They are in haste and cannot wait, And once departed come no more.Awake! arise! the athlete's arm Loses its strength by too much rest;The fallow land, the untilled farm Produces only weeds at best.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Think of your woods and orchards without birds!Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beamsAs in an idiot's brain remembered wordsHang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sand of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solenm main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Straight between them ran the pathway,Never grew the grass upon it
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Not in the clamor of the crowded street,Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time;Footprints, that perhaps another,Sailing o'er life's solemn main,A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,Seeing, shall take heart again.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ye are better than all the balladsThat ever were sung or said;For ye are living poems,And all the rest are dead.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Art is long, and Time is fleeting.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Children's HourBetween the dark and the daylight,When the night is beginning to lower,Comes a pause in the day's occupations,That is known as the Children's Hour.I hear in the chamber above meThe patter of little feet,The sound of a door that is opened,And voices soft and sweet.From my study I see in the lamplight,Descending the broad hall stair,Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,And Edith with golden hair.A whisper, and then a silence:Yet I know by their merry eyesThey are plotting and planning togetherTo take me by surprise.A sudden rush from the stairway,A sudden raid from the hall!By three doors left unguardedThey enter my castle wall!They climb up into my turretO'er the arms and back of my chair;If I try to escape, they surround me;They seem to be everywhere.They almost devour me with kisses,Their arms about me entwine,Till I think of the Bishop of BingenIn his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,Because you have scaled the wall,Such an old mustache as I amIs not a match for you all!I have you fast in my fortress,And will not let you depart,But put you down into the dungeonIn the round-tower of my heart.And there will I keep you forever,Yes, forever and a day,Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,And moulder in dust away!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Unasked, Unsought, Love gives itself but is not bought
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Resolve, and thou art free.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it;Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Music is the universal language of mankind.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,And our hearts, though stout and brave,Still, like muffled drums, are beatingFuneral marches to the grave.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives,When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives,Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain,But never will be sung to us again,Is they remembrance. Now the hour of restHath come to thee. Sleep, darling: it is best.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;Behind the clouds is the sun still shining
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
And in despair I bowed my head;"There is no peace on earth," I said;"For hate is strong,And mocks the songOf peace on earth, good-will to men!"Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!The Wrong shall fail,the Right prevail,With peace on earth, good-will to men!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained in sudden flight but, they while their companions slept, they were toiling upwards in the night.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ah, Nothing is too late, till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;Thy fate is the common fate of all,Into each life some rain must fall
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
As Unto the bow the the cord is ,So unto the man is woman;Though she bends him, she obeys him,Though she draws him , yet she follows:Useless each without the other.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,And all the sweet serenity of books
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow