Alexander Smith citations

“In winter, when the dismal rain
Comes down in slanting lines,
And Wind, that grand old harper, smote
His thunder-harp of pines.”

“Some books are drenchèd sands
On which a great soul’s wealth lies all in heaps,
Like a wrecked argosy.”

“The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.”

“Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.”

“The soul of man is like the rolling world,
One half in day, the other dipt in night;
The one has music and the flying cloud,
The other, silence and the wakeful stars.”

“A poem round and perfect as a star.”

“Like a pale martyr in his shirt of fire.”

“Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine.”

“We hear the wail of the remorseful winds
In their strange penance. And this wretched orb
Knows not the taste of rest; a maniac world,
Homeless and sobbing through the deep she goes.”

“In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place to-day, it is vain to seek it there to-morrow. You can not lay a trap for it.”

“Each time we love,
We turn a nearer and a broader mark
To that keen archer, Sorrow, and he strikes.”

“We twain have met like the ships upon the sea,
Who hold an hour’s converse, so short, so sweet;
One little hour! And then, away they speed
On lonely paths, through mist and cloud and foam,
To meet no more.”

“Everything is sweetened by risk.”