Bayard Taylor Quotes - Page 3

Eccentricity is developed monomania.

The aquilegia sprinkled on the rocks A scarlet rain; the yellow violet Sat in the chariot of its leaves, the phlox Held spikes of purple flame in meadows wet, And all the streams with vernal-scented reed Were fringed, and streaky bellow of miskodeed.

To Truth's house there is a single door, which is experience.

London has the advantage of one of the most gloomy atmospheres in the world.

Swelling in anger or sparkling in glee.

Higher than the perfect song For which love longeth, Is the tender fear of wrong, That never wrongeth.

Oh! what waves of crime and bloodshed have swept like the waves of a deluge down the valley of the Rhine! War has laid his mailed hand on those desolate towers and ruthlessly torn down what time has spared, yet he could not mar the beauty of the shore, nor could Time himself hurl down the mountains that guard it.

Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather Strikes through our changeful sky its coming beams; Somewhere above us, in elusive ether, Waits the fulfilment of our dearest dreams.

Women are not apt to be won by the charms of verse.

And rest, that strengthens unto virtuous deeds, Is one with Prayer.

Love is better than Fame.

There may come a day Which crowns Desire with gift, and Art with truth, And Love with bliss, and Life with wiser youth!

When May, with cowslip-braided locks, Walks through the land in green attire. And burns in meadow-grass the phlox His torch of purple fire: And when the punctual May arrives, With cowslip-garland on her brow, We know what once she gave our lives, And cannot give us now!

The loving are the daring.

From the desert I come to thee, On a stallion shod with fire; And the winds are left behind In the speed of my desire.

But still I dream that somewhere there must be The spirit of a child that waits for me.

I know I am--that simplest bliss The millions of my brothers miss. I know the fortune to be born, Even to the meanest wretch they scorn.

Departed suns their trails of splendor drew Across departed summers: whispers came From voices, long ago resolved again Into the primeval Silence, and we twain, Ghosts of our present selves, yet still the same, As in a spectral mirror wandered there.

Who thinks, at night, that morn will ever be? Who knows, far out upon the central sea, That anywhere is land? And yet, a shore Has set behind us, and will rise before: A past foretells a future.

The source of each accordant strain Lies deeper than the Poet's brain. First from the people's heart must spring The passions which he learns to sing; They are the wind, the harp is he, To voice their fitful melody,-- The language of their varying fate, Their pride, grief, love, ambition, hate,-- The talisman which holds inwrought The touchstone of the listener's thought; That penetrates each vain disguise, And brings his secret to his eyes.

The maxims tell you to aim at perfection, which is well; but it's unattainable, all the same.

Labor, you know, is prayer.

Fame is what you have taken, / Character's what you give; / When to this truth you waken, / Then you begin to live.