“Drowsy I lie, no folk at my command,
Who once was called the Lady of the Land;
Who might have bought a kingdom with a kiss,
Yea, half the world with such a sight as this.”
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70), The Lady of the Land
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William Morris 119
author, designer, and craftsman 1834–1896Related quotes
“It might be easier
To fail with land in sight,
Than gain my blue peninsula
To perish of delight.”
Life, p. 69
Collected Poems (1993)
“I would leave at once, but it would be cruel to abandon a lady in a foreign land with a maniac.”
Source: What Really Happened in Peru
Part 2, “A Door Into Ocean” - Chapter 4 (p. 71)
A Door into Ocean (1986)
“Stranger, tell the people of Lacedaemon
That we who lie here obeyed their commands.”
Book 7, Ch. 228.
The Histories
Variant: Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
“my kingdom for a kiss upon your shoulder"
lover you should have come over-”
“One might have thought of sight, but who could think
Of what it sees, for all the ill it sees?”
Esthétique du Mal (1944)
Context: One might have thought of sight, but who could think
Of what it sees, for all the ill it sees?
Speech found the ear, for all the evil sound,
But the dark italics it could not propound.
And out of what sees and hears and out
Of what one feels, who could have thought to make
So many selves, so many sensuous worlds,
As if the air, the mid-day air, was swarming
With the metaphysical changes that occur,
Merely in living as and where we live.