“Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring!”

Source: Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 13.
Context: Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring! — the great annual miracle of the blossoming of Aaron's rod, repeated on myriads and myriads of branches! — the gentle progression and growth of herbs, flowers, trees, — gentle and yet irrepressible, — which no force can stay, no violence restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood by any human power, because itself is divine power. If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous and the perpetual exercise of God's power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring!" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 202
American poet 1807–1882

Related quotes

Karl Marx photo
E.E. Cummings photo

“it's spring when the world is puddle-wonderful”

Tulips and Chimneys (1923) "in Just-"

“Ah, the Wonderful World of Camping - may it rot in hell.”

Source: Divine By Mistake

Omar Khayyám photo
Omar Khayyám photo
Irvine Welsh photo

“Ah wonder if anybody this side of the Atlantic has ever bought a baseball bat with playing baseball in mind.”

Sick Boy, "Blowing It: Deid Dugs" (Chapter 4, Story 3).
Trainspotting (1993)

William Ernest Henley photo

“Life — life — life! 'Tis the sole great thing
This side of death,
Heart on heart in the wonder of Spring!”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

Source: Hawthorn and Lavender (1901), XI

Hannibal photo

“Ah there is one thing about them more wonderful than their numbers … in all that vast number there is not one man called Gisgo.”

Hannibal (-247–-183 BC) military commander of Carthage during the Second Punic War

Spoken as a jest to one of his officers named Gisgo, who had remarked on the numbers of Roman forces against them before the Battle of Cannae (2 August 216 BC), as quoted in A History of Rome (1855), by Henry George Liddell Vol. 1, p. 355
Variant translation: You forget one thing Gisgo, among all their numerous forces, there is not one man called Gisgo.

Kevin Kelly photo

“Urbanization is the advent of edge species.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

William Ernest Henley photo

“Those incantations of the Spring
That made the heart a centre of miracles
Grow formal, and the wonder-working bours
Arise no more — no more.”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

"Prologue"
Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms
Context: p>Those incantations of the Spring
That made the heart a centre of miracles
Grow formal, and the wonder-working bours
Arise no more — no more.Something is dead...
'Tis time to creep in close about the fire
And tell grey tales of what we were, and dream
Old dreams and faded, and as we may rejoice
In the young life that round us leaps and laughs,
A fountain in the sunshine, in the pride
Of God's best gift that to us twain returns,
Dear Heart, no more — no more.</p

Related topics