Francis William Bourdillon Quotes

Francis William Bourdillon was a British poet and translator. He is known also as bibliophile and scholar.

✵ 22. March 1852 – 13. January 1921
Francis William Bourdillon: 10 quotes9 likes

Famous Francis William Bourdillon Quotes

“Slowly the joy of flower and bird
Did like a tide withdraw;
And in the heaven a silent star
Smiled on me, infinitely far.”

Francis William Bourdillon

&quot; The Chantry Of The Cherubim http://www.bartleby.com/236/219.html&quot; in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson. <br class="br">Context: p&gt;I walk as one unclothed of flesh,<br>I wash my spirit clean;<br>I see old miracles afresh,<br>And wonders yet unseen.<br>I will not leave Thee till Thou give<br>Some word whereby my soul may live!I listened — but no voice I heard;<br>I looked — no likeness saw;<br>Slowly the joy of flower and bird<br>Did like a tide withdraw;<br>And in the heaven a silent star<br>Smiled on me, infinitely far.&lt;/p

“The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.”

Francis William Bourdillon

"Light" (popularly known as "The Night has a Thousand Eyes"), published in The Spectator (October 1873).
Context: p>The Night has a thousand eyes,
And the Day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.</p

“I buoyed me on the wings of dream,
Above the world of sense;
I set my thought to sound the scheme,
And fathom the Immense”

Francis William Bourdillon

"The Chantry Of The Cherubim" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.
Context: p>I buoyed me on the wings of dream,
Above the world of sense;
I set my thought to sound the scheme,
And fathom the Immense;
I tuned my spirit as a lute
To catch wind-music wandering mute.Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.Nor I am more, nor less, than these;
All are one brotherhood;
I and all creatures, plants, and trees,
The living limbs of God;
And in an hour, as this, divine,
I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.</p

“Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.”

Francis William Bourdillon

"The Chantry Of The Cherubim" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.
Context: p>I buoyed me on the wings of dream,
Above the world of sense;
I set my thought to sound the scheme,
And fathom the Immense;
I tuned my spirit as a lute
To catch wind-music wandering mute.Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.Nor I am more, nor less, than these;
All are one brotherhood;
I and all creatures, plants, and trees,
The living limbs of God;
And in an hour, as this, divine,
I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.</p

“The Night has a thousand eyes,
And the Day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.”

Francis William Bourdillon

"Light" (popularly known as "The Night has a Thousand Eyes"), published in The Spectator (October 1873).
Context: p>The Night has a thousand eyes,
And the Day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.</p

Francis William Bourdillon Quotes

“Sudden thy silent beauty on me shone,
Fair as the moon had given thee all her spell.”

Francis William Bourdillon

"Sonnet I" in The Galaxy Vol. XIX, (January - June 1875), p. 747.
Context: Sudden thy silent beauty on me shone,
Fair as the moon had given thee all her spell.
Then, as Endymion had found on earth,
In unchanged beauty but in fashion changed,
Her whom I loved so long; so felt I then,
Not that a new love in my heart had birth,
But that the old, that far from reach had ranged,
Was now on earth, and to be loved of men.

“Nor I am more, nor less, than these;
All are one brotherhood;
I and all creatures, plants, and trees,
The living limbs of God;
And in an hour, as this, divine,
I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.”

Francis William Bourdillon

"The Chantry Of The Cherubim" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.
Context: p>I buoyed me on the wings of dream,
Above the world of sense;
I set my thought to sound the scheme,
And fathom the Immense;
I tuned my spirit as a lute
To catch wind-music wandering mute.Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.Nor I am more, nor less, than these;
All are one brotherhood;
I and all creatures, plants, and trees,
The living limbs of God;
And in an hour, as this, divine,
I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.</p

“I walk as one unclothed of flesh,
I wash my spirit clean;
I see old miracles afresh,
And wonders yet unseen.”

Francis William Bourdillon

&quot; The Chantry Of The Cherubim http://www.bartleby.com/236/219.html&quot; in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson. <br class="br">Context: p&gt;I walk as one unclothed of flesh,<br>I wash my spirit clean;<br>I see old miracles afresh,<br>And wonders yet unseen.<br>I will not leave Thee till Thou give<br>Some word whereby my soul may live!I listened — but no voice I heard;<br>I looked — no likeness saw;<br>Slowly the joy of flower and bird<br>Did like a tide withdraw;<br>And in the heaven a silent star<br>Smiled on me, infinitely far.&lt;/p

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