Top 93 Quotes & Sayings by Bayard Taylor - Page 2

But still I dream that somewhere there must be The spirit of a child that waits for me.

I know I am--that simplest bliss The millions of my brothers miss. I know the fortune to be born, Even to the meanest wretch they scorn.

Really,' thought I, 'we call Baltimore the 'Monumental City' for its two marble columns, and here is Edinburg with one at every street-corner!

Pansies in soft April rains Fill their stalks with honeyed sap Drawn from Earth's prolific lap.

Voluptuous bloom and fragrance rare The summer to its rose may bring; Far sweeter to the wooing air The hidden violet of spring. Still, still that lovely ghost appears, Too fair, too pure, to bid depart; No riper love of later years Can steal its beauty from the heart.

Love's humility is love's true pride.

Eccentricity is developed monomania.

Swelling in anger or sparkling in glee.

Departed suns their trails of splendor drew Across departed summers: whispers came From voices, long ago resolved again Into the primeval Silence, and we twain, Ghosts of our present selves, yet still the same, As in a spectral mirror wandered there.

Peace the offspring is of Power.

We follow and race In shifting chase, Over the boundless ocean-space! Who hath beheld when the race begun? Who shall behold it run?

To Truth's house there is a single door, which is experience.

The aquilegia sprinkled on the rocks A scarlet rain; the yellow violet Sat in the chariot of its leaves, the phlox Held spikes of purple flame in meadows wet, And all the streams with vernal-scented reed Were fringed, and streaky bellow of miskodeed.

Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather Strikes through our changeful sky its coming beams; Somewhere above us, in elusive ether, Waits the fulfilment of our dearest dreams.

Fame is what you have taken, / Character's what you give; / When to this truth you waken, / Then you begin to live.

From the desert I come to thee, On a stallion shod with fire; And the winds are left behind In the speed of my desire.

The source of each accordant strain Lies deeper than the Poet's brain. First from the people's heart must spring The passions which he learns to sing; They are the wind, the harp is he, To voice their fitful melody,-- The language of their varying fate, Their pride, grief, love, ambition, hate,-- The talisman which holds inwrought The touchstone of the listener's thought; That penetrates each vain disguise, And brings his secret to his eyes.

The glories of the possible are ours.

Life lives only in success.

Women are not apt to be won by the charms of verse.

Labor, you know, is prayer.

The knowledge of my sin Is half-repentance.

Love is better than Fame.

The maxims tell you to aim at perfection, which is well; but it's unattainable, all the same.

And rest, that strengthens unto virtuous deeds, Is one with Prayer.

Higher than the perfect song For which love longeth, Is the tender fear of wrong, That never wrongeth.

The stream from Wisdom's well, Which God supplies, is inexhaustible.

There may come a day Which crowns Desire with gift, and Art with truth, And Love with bliss, and Life with wiser youth!

The hollows are heavy and dank With the steam of the Goldenrods.

The clouds are scudding across the moon, A misty light is on the sea; The wind in the shrouds has a wintry tune, And the foam is flying free.

Who thinks, at night, that morn will ever be? Who knows, far out upon the central sea, That anywhere is land? And yet, a shore Has set behind us, and will rise before: A past foretells a future.

The loving are the daring.

When May, with cowslip-braided locks, Walks through the land in green attire. And burns in meadow-grass the phlox His torch of purple fire: And when the punctual May arrives, With cowslip-garland on her brow, We know what once she gave our lives, And cannot give us now!