The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high, as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To many the trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin horn to call them home, like laborers from, the field, at dinner-time, and they think themselves lucky to get the dinner.
Look, then, into thine heart, and write! Yes, into Life's deep stream! All forms of sorrow and delight, All solemn Voices of the Night, That can soothe thee, or affright, - Be these henceforth thy theme. (excerpt from "Voices of the Night")
How can I teach your children gentleness and mercy to the weak, and reverence for life, which in its nakedness and excess, is still a gleam of God's omnipotence, when by your laws, your actions and your speech, you contradict the very things I teach?
Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise.
For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, In sombre harness mailed, Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer, The rampart wall has scaled. He passed into the chamber of the sleeper, The dark and silent room, And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper, The silence and the gloom.
Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts. Painting and sculpture are but images, Are merely shadows cast by outward things On stone or canvas, having in themselves No separate existence. Architecture, Existing in itself, and not in seeming A something it is not, surpasses them As substance shadow.