Source: The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems (1913), The Crowning Hour, I
Context: p>It was ages ago in life's first wonder
I found you, Virgilia, wild sea-heart;
And 'twas ages ago that we went asunder,
Ages and worlds apart.Your luminous face and your hair's dark glory,
I knew them of old by an ocean-stream,
In a far, first world now turned to story,
Now faded back to dream.</p
Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979). 1.
“And they are gone: ay, ages long ago
These lovers fled away into the storm.”
Stanza 42
Poems (1820), The Eve of St. Agnes
Edge of Seventeen
Bella Donna (album) (1981)
But alas! will you not remark that amidst all the wonders recorded in holy writ no instance can be produced where a young Woman from real inclination has prefered an old man — This is so much against me that I shall not be able I fear to contest the prize with you — yet, under the encouragement you have given me I shall enter the list for so inestimable a jewell.
Letter to the Marquis de Lafayette (30 September 1779)
1770s
“What wise or stupid thing can man conceive
That was not thought of in ages long ago?”
Act II, The Gothic Chamber
Faust, Part 2 (1832)
“Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now.”
As quoted in Eternal Greece (1961) by Rex Warner, p. 34
Context: Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now. We do not need the praises of a Homer, or of anyone else whose words may delight us for the moment, but the estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true.
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
