Death darkens his eyes, and unplumes his wings, Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings: Live so, my Love, that when death shall come, Swan-like and sweet it may waft thee home.
It is so much more difficult to live with one's body than with one's soul. One's body is so much more exacting: what it won't have it won't have, and nothing can make bitter into sweet.
The mellow autumn came, and with it came The promised party, to enjoy its sweets. The corn is cut, the manor full of game; The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats In russet jacket;--lynx-like is his aim; Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats. An, nutbrown partridges! An, brilliant pheasants! And ah, ye poachers!--'Tis no sport for peasants.
Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,
But most where trees are sending
Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
A shelter from the sky.
And there in those wild bowers
A lovely form is laid;
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
Wave gently round her head.
Sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moans of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.
Love was as subtly caught, as a disease; But being got it is a treasure sweet, which to defend is harder than to get: And ought not be profaned on either part, for though 'Tis got by chance, 'Tis kept by art.
Clearly, one primary purpose of our existence upon the earth is to obtain a body of flesh and bones. We have also been given the gift of agency. In a thousand ways we are privileged to choose for ourselves. Here we learn from the hard taskmaster of experience. We discern between good and evil. We differentiate as to the bitter and the sweet. We discover that there are consequences attached to our actions.
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!
Uncompromising thought is the luxury of the closeted recluse. Untrammeled reasoning is the indulgence of the philosopher, of the dreamer of sweet dreams.
English Bohemianism is a curiously unluscious fruit. ... Inside this hothouse, huge lascivious orchids slide sensuously up the sweating windows, passion-flowers cross-pollinate in wild heliotrope abandon, lotuses writhe with poppies in the sweet warm beds, kumquats ripen, open and plop flatly to the floor-and outside, in a neat, trimly-hoed kitchen-garden, English bohemians sit in cold orderly rows, like carrots.
A line will take us hours maybe; / Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, / Our stitching and unstitching has been naught... Better go down upon your marrow-bones / And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones... For to articulate sweet sounds together / Is to work harder than all these, and yet / Be thought an idler by the noisy set.
But death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man’s best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.
A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes uppermost, and, because he says every thing, saying, at last, something good; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is nothing whimsical or fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with the most determined aim which any man or class knows of in his times.
It is thyself, mine own self's better part; Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart; My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim, My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.
Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.