
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)
Pt. I line 268.
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)
“Like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 661.
“Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,
Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes
Beholds his own hereditary skies.”
Pronaque quum spectent animalia cetera terram,
Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.
Book I, 84 (as translated by John Dryden)
Metamorphoses (Transformations)
“Death slue not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies.”
Another [Epitaph] of the Same (1586), line 20
Speech in Philadelphia (1776)
Source: Address on Laying the Cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument (1825), p. 64
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VI : In the Depths of the Abyss
Context: In the most secret chamber of the spirit of him who believes himself convinced that death puts an end to his personal consciousness, his memory, for ever, and all unknown to him perhaps, there lurks a shadow, a vague shadow, a shadow of uncertainty, and while he says within himself, "Well, let us live this life that passes away, for there is no other!" the silence of this secret chamber speaks to him and murmurs, "Who knows!... " These voices are like the humming of a mosquito when the south-west wind roars through the trees in the wood; we cannot distinguish this faint humming, yet nevertheless, merged in the clamor of the storm, it reaches the ear.
Charity, line 435.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)