Quotes
Quotes - Longfellow
Look, then, into thine heart, and write!
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 art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Art is long, and time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
There is a reaper whose name is Death,
And with his sickle keen
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.
The star of the unconquered will.
Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,--
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
The hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain.
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.
For Time will teach thee soon the truth,
There are no birds in last year's nest!
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
The prayer of Ajax was for light.
O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted ones, who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, yet afraid to die,
Patient, though sorely tried!
My soul is full of longing
For the secret of the Sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a thrilling pulse through me.
Books are sepulchres of thought.
Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
O thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands; life hath snares!
She floats upon the river of his thoughts.
A banner with the strange device.
This is the place. Stand still, my steed,--
Let me review the scene,
And summon from the shadowy past
The forms that once have been.
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
