John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-1861 John Bartlett
1 | |
There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb The crowns o’ the world; oh, eyes sublime With tears and laughter for all time! | |
A Vision of Poets. | |
2 | |
And Chaucer, with his infantine Familiar clasp of things divine. | |
A Vision of Poets. | |
3 | |
And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben, Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when The world was worthy of such men. | |
A Vision of Poets. | |
4 | |
Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death. | |
A Vision of Poets. Conclusion. | |
5 | |
Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west. | |
Toll slowly. | |
6 | |
And I smiled to think God’s greatness flowed around our incompleteness, Round our restlessness His rest. | |
Rhyme of the Duchess. | |
7 | |
Or from Browning some “Pomegranate,” which if cut deep down the middle Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity. | |
Lady Geraldine’s Courtship. xli. | |
8 | |
But since he had The genuis to be loved, why let him have The justice to be honoured in his grave. | |
Crowned and buried. xxvii. | |
9 | |
Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man. | |
To George Sand. A Desire. | |
10 | |
By thunders of white silence. | |
Hiram Powers’s Greek Slave. | |
11 | |
And that dismal cry rose slowly And sank slowly through the air, Full of spirit’s melancholy And eternity’s despair; And they heard the words it said,— “Pan is dead! great Pan is dead! Pan, Pan is dead!” 1 | |
The dead Pan. | |
12 | |
She has seen the mystery hid Under Egypt’s pyramid: By those eyelids pale and close Now she knows what Rhamses knows. | |
Little Mattie. Stanza ii. | |
13 | |
But so fair, She takes the breath of men away Who gaze upon her unaware. | |
Bianca among the Nightingales. xii. | |
14 | |
“Yes,” I answered you last night; “No,” this morning, sir, I say: Colors seen by candle-light Will not look the same by day. | |
The Lady’s Yes. | |
15 | |
Dreams of doing good For good-for-nothing people. | |
Aurora Leigh. Book ii. | |
16 | |
God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in it. | |
Aurora Leigh. Book ii. | |
17 | |
The beautiful seems right By force of Beauty, and the feeble wrong Because of weakness. | |
Aurora Leigh. Book ii. | |
18 | |
Every wish Is like a prayer—with God. 2 | |
Aurora Leigh. Book ii. | |
19 | |
Good critics, who have stamped out poets’ hope, Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state, Good patriots, who for a theory risked a cause. | |
Aurora Leigh. Book iv. | |
20 | |
Whoso loves Believes the impossible. | |
Aurora Leigh. Book v. | |
21 | |
The growing drama has outgrown such toys Of simulated stature, face, and speech: It also peradventure may outgrow The simulation of the painted scene, Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume, And take for a worthier stage the soul itself, Its shifting fancies and celestial lights, With all its grand orchestral silences To keep the pauses of its rhythmic sounds. | |
Aurora Leigh. Book v. | |
22 | |
Since when was genius found respectable? | |
Aurora Leigh. Book vi. | |
23 | |
Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; 3 And only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries. | |
Aurora Leigh. Book vii. |
Note 1. Thamus … uttered with a loud voice his message, “The great Pan is dead.”—Plutarch: Why the Oracles cease to give Answers. [back] |
Note 2. See Montgomery, page 497. Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire. [back] |
Note 3. Whittier: Chapel of the Hermits. [back] |