Robert Bridges Quotes

I know that if odour were visible, as colour is, I'd see the summer garden in rainbow clouds.

When men were all asleep the snow came flying, In large white flakes falling on the city brown, Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town.

Man's Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense,that tho' she guide his highest flight heav'nward, and teach himdignity morals manners and human comfort,she can delicatly and dangerously bedizenthe rioting joys that fringe the sad pathways of Hell.

Were I a cloud I'd gather My skirts up in the air, And fly I well know whither, And rest I well know where.

When first we met we did not guess that Love would prove so hard a master.

So sweet love seemed that April morn, when first we kissed beside the thorn, so strangely sweet, it was not strange we thought that love could never change.

And whiter grows the foam, The small moon lightens more; And as I turn me home, My shadow walks before.

But I can tell - let truth be told - That love will change in growing old; Though day by day is nought to see, So delicate his motions be.

Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding,Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?

O soul, be patient: thou shalt find A little matter mend all this; Some strain of music to thy mind, Some praise for skill not spent amiss.

O youth whose hope is high, Who dost to Truth aspire, Whether thou live or die, O look not back nor tire.

Beauty, the eternal Spouse of the Wisdom of God and Angel of his Presence thru' all creation.

Beauty being the best of all we know sums up the unsearchable and secret aims of nature.

Unto us all our days are love's anniversaries, each one In turn hath ripened something of our happiness.

My delight and thy delight Walking, like two angels white, In the gardens of the night.

Spring goeth all in white, / Crowned with milk-white may: / In fleecy flocks of light / O'er heaven the white clouds stray.

There is a hill beside the silver Thames, Shady with birch and beech and odorous pine; And brilliant underfoot with thousand gems, Steeply the thickets to his floods decline.

Scatter the clouds that hide The face of heaven, and show Where sweet peace doth abide, Where Truth and Beauty grow.

Since to be loved endures, To love is wise.

The south-wind strengthens to a gale, / Across the moon the clouds fly fast, / The house is smitten as with a flail, / The chimney shudders to the blast.

Our stability is but balance, and conduct lies In masterful administration of the unforseen.

The name of happiness is but a wider termfor the unalloy'd conditions of the Pleasur of Life,attendant on all function, and not to be deny'dto th' soul, unless forsooth in our thought of naturespiritual is by definition unnatural.

To-morrow it seemLike the empty words of a dreamRemembered on waking.

The hill pines were sighing, O'ercast and chill was the day; A mist in the valley lying Blotted the pleasant May.

Poetry's magic lies in the imagery which satifies even without interpretation..it is accepted as easily as it was created.

Good melody is never out of fashion

When Death to either shall come - I pray it be first to me.

I love all beauteous things, I seek and adore them

Beauty is the highest of all these occult influences, the quality of appearances that thru' the sense wakeneth spiritual emotion in the mind of man.

The lonely season in lonely lands, when fled Are half the birds, and mists lie low, and the sun Is rarely seen, nor strayeth far from his bed; The short days pass unwelcomed one by one.

I have loved flowers that fade,Within whose magic tentsRich hues have marriage madeWith sweet unmemoried scents:A honeymoon delight,A joy of love at sight,That ages in an hourMy song be like a flower!

I live in hope and that I think do all Who come into this world.

Nature hav no music; nor would ther be for theeany better melody in the April woods at dawnthan what an old stone-deaf labourer, lying awakeo'night in his comfortless attic, might perchancebe aware of, when the rats run amok in his thatch?

Science comforting man's animal poverty and leisuring his toil, hath humanized manners and social temper, and now above her globe-spredd net of speeded intercourse hath outrun all magic, and disclosing the secrecy of the reticent air hath woven a web of invisible strands spiriting the dumb inane with the quick matter of life.