Richard Henry Stoddard Quotes

Around our pillows golden ladders rise, And up and down the skies, With wingèd sandals shod, The angels come, and go, the Messengers of God! Nor, though they fade from us, do they depart-- It is the childly heart: We walk as heretofore, Adown their shining ranks, but see them nevermore.

The trumpet winds have sounded a retreat, Blowing o'er land and sea a sullen strain; Usurping March, defeated, flies again, And lays his trophies at the Winter's feet. And lo! where April, coming in his turn, In changeful motleys, half of light and shade, Leads his belated charge, a delicate maid, A nymph with dripping urn.

Tell me what is sorrow? It is a garden-bed. And what is joy? It is a little rose, Which in that garden grows.

I am not alone, For solitude like this is populous. And its abundant life of sky and sun, High-floating clouds, low mists, and wheeling birds, And waves that ripple shoreward all day long, Whether the tide is setting in or out, Forever rippling shoreward, dark and bright, As lights and shadows, and the shifting winds Pursue each other in their endless play, Is more than the companionship of man.

But let me silent be: For silence is the speech of love, The music of the spheres above.

Let me silent be; For silence is the speech of love, The music of the spheres above.

Given the books of a man, it is not difficult, I think, to detect therein the personality of the man, and the station in life to which he was born.

With no companion but the constant Muse, Who sought me when I needed her--ah, when Did I not need her, solitary else?

Thou wert before the Continents, before The hollow heavens, which like another sea Encircles them and thee, but whence thou wert, And when thou wast created, is not known, Antiquity was young when thou wast old.

I loved the Sea. Whether in calm it glassed the gracious day With all its light, the night with all its fires; Whether in storm it lashed its sullen spray, Wild as the heart when passionate youth expires; Or lay, as now, a torture to my mind, In yonder land-locked bay, unwrinkled by the wind.