“O Trade, O Trade! Would thou wert dead!
The time needs heart — 'tis tired of head.”
Sidney Lanier (1842–1881) American musician, poet
"The Symphony" (1875).
Poetry
XVII, 15
The Kitáb-I-Asmá
“O Trade, O Trade! Would thou wert dead!
The time needs heart — 'tis tired of head.”
Sidney Lanier (1842–1881) American musician, poet
"The Symphony" (1875).
Poetry
Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith
XVI, 19
The Kitáb-I-Asmá
Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) British hymn writer and theologian
The Greatness of God.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) French abbot, theologian
Context: I would count him blessed and holy to whom such rapture has been vouchsafed in this mortal life, for even an instant to lose thyself,
as if thou wert emptied and lost and swallowed up in God, is no human love; it is celestial.
But if sometimes a poor mortal feels that heavenly joy for a rapturous moment, then this wretched life envies his happiness,
the malice of daily trifles disturbs him, this body of death weighs him down, the needs of the flesh are imperative,
the weakness of corruption fails him, and above all brotherly love calls him back to duty.
Alas! that voice summons him to re-enter his own round of existence; and he must ever cry out lamentably,
‘O Lord, I am oppressed: undertake for me’ (Isa. 38.14); and again, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom. 7.24)
Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith
V, 8
The Persian Bayán
“Fair, cold, and faithless wert thou, my own!
For that I love
Thy heart of stone!”
Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist
"The Dirge of the Sea" (April 1891)
Context: Years! Years, ye shall mix with me!
Ye shall grow a part
Of the laughing Sea;
Of the moaning heart
Of the glittered wave
Of the sun-gleam's dart
In the ocean-grave. Fair, cold, and faithless wert thou, my own!
For that I love
Thy heart of stone!
From the heights above
To the depths below,
Where dread things move, There is naught can show
A life so trustless! Proud be thy crown!
Ruthless, like none, save the Sea, alone!
Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965) English children's writer
Pan-Worship
Pan-Worship and Other Poems (1908)
Context: O evanescent temples built of man
To deities he honoured and dethroned!
Earth shoots a trail of her eternal vine
To crown the head that men have ceased to honour.
Beneath the coronal of leaf and lichen
The mocking smile upon the lips derides
Pan's lost dominion; but the pointed ears
Are keen and prick'd with old remember'd sounds.
All my breast aches with longing for the past!
Thou God of stone, I have a craving in me
For knowledge of thee as thou wert in old
Enchanted twilights in Arcadia.
Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith
XVIII, 3
The Kitáb-I-Asmá
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
The Farewell
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)