“O harmony! thou tenderest nurse of pain,
If that thy note's sweet magic e'er can heal
Griefs which the patient spirit oft may feel,
Oh! let me listen to thy songs again;
Till memory her fairest tints shall bring;
Hope wake with brighter eye, and listening seem
With smiles to think on some delightful dream.”

Music, from The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 - With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan (1855).

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 "O harmony! thou tenderest nurse of pain, If that thy note's sweet magic e'er can heal Griefs which the patient spirit…" by William Lisle Bowles?
William Lisle Bowles photo
William Lisle Bowles 3
English priest, poet and critic 1762–1850

Related quotes

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Thou shalt bid thy fair hands rove
O'er thy soft lute's silver slumbers,
Waking sounds; of song and love
In their sweet Italian numbers.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(29th March 1823) Song - I'll meet thee at the midnight hour
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

George Linley photo

“Tho' lost to sight, to memory dear
Thou ever wilt remain;
One only hope my heart can cheer,—
The hope to meet again.

Oh, fondly on the past I dwell,
And oft recall those hours
When, wandering down the shady dell,
We gathered the wild-flowers.

Yes, life then seemed one pure delight,
Tho' now each spot looks drear;
Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,
To memory thou art dear.

Oft in the tranquil hour of night,
When stars illume the sky,
I gaze upon each orb of light,
And wish that thou wert by.

I think upon that happy time,
That time so fondly loved,
When last we heard the sweet bells chime,
As thro' the fields we roved.”

George Linley (1798–1865) British writer

Song, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). This song was written and composed by Linley for Mr. Augustus Braham, and sung by him. It is not known when it was written,—probably about 1830. Another song, entitled "Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear," was published in London in 1880, purporting to have been written by Ruthven Jenkyns in 1703 and published in the "Magazine for Mariners". That magazine, however, never existed, and the composer of the music acknowledged, in a private letter, that he copied the words from an American newspaper. The reputed author, Ruthven Jenkyns, was living, under another name, in California in 1882.

George Gordon Byron photo
Walter de la Mare photo
Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye photo

“Thou mourner for departed dreams!
On earth there is no rest
When grief hath troubled the pure streams
Of memory in thy breast!”

Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye (1807–1867) British songwriter, composer, poet and author

"Disenchanted!", line 41; p. 139.
Songs, Poems, & Verses (1894)

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Alfred Noyes photo
Robert Burns photo

Related topics