Quotes
Quotes about Earth
Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth.
On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they [the Colonies] raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome in the height of her glory is not to be compared,--a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.
Thus heavenly hope is all serene,
But earthly hope, how bright soe'er,
Still fluctuates o'er this changing scene,
As false and fleeting as 't is fair.
In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.
Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin,--his control
Stops with the shore.
She was a form of life and light
That seen, became a part of sight,
And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye,
The morning-star of memory!
Yes, love indeed is light from heaven;
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Alla given,
To lift from earth our low desire.
And to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him.
Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones,
Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.
In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her,
Save thine "incomparable oil," Macassar!
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three
To make a new Thermopylæ.
Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother's, when she feels
For the first time her first-born's breath!
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke!
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm!
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet song, and dance, and wine!
And thou art terrible!--the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know or dream or fear
Of agony are thine.
With hue like that when some great painter dips
His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.
O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth.
The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn.
What! alive, and so bold, O earth?
Alas for love, if thou wert all,
And naught beyond, O Earth!
Loveliest of lovely things are they
On earth that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,--
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
The poetry of earth is never dead.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too?
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores.
Every noble crown is, and on earth will forever be, a crown of thorns.
On this hapless earth
There's small sincerity of mirth,
And laughter oft is but an art
To drown the outcry of the heart.
