“But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
Oh when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?”
The Hermit
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James Beattie 18
Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher 1735–1803Related quotes
“Ah! when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!”
The Hermit
"Spring", p. 61. Compare: "Oh, East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet", Rudyard Kipling.
Along the Trail (1898)
Memories of President Lincoln, 1
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Book XLII: Ch. 18: A summary of the changes which have occurred around the globe in my lifetime
Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848 – 1850)
Context: New storms will arise; one can believe in calamities to come which will surpass the afflictions we have been overwhelmed by in the past; already, men are thinking of bandaging their old wounds to return to the battlefield. However, I do not expect an imminent outbreak of war: nations and kings are equally weary; unforeseen catastrophe will not yet fall on France: what follows me will only be the effect of general transformation. No doubt there will be painful moments: the face of the world cannot change without suffering. But, once again, there will be no separate revolutions; simply the great revolution approaching its end. The scenes of tomorrow no longer concern me; they call for other artists: your turn, gentlemen!
As I write these last words, my window, which looks west over the gardens of the Foreign Mission, is open: it is six in the morning; I can see the pale and swollen moon; it is sinking over the spire of the Invalides, scarcely touched by the first golden glow from the East; one might say that the old world was ending, and the new beginning. I behold the light of a dawn whose sunrise I shall never see. It only remains for me to sit down at the edge of my grave; then I shall descend boldly, crucifix in hand, into eternity.
“But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.”
To a Young Lady, st. 3 (1805).
O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the beloved in her Lover.
Variant translation by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (1991)
Oh night thou was my guide
Oh night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover to the beloved one
transforming each of them into the other.
Variant adapted for music by Loreena McKennitt (1994)
Dark Night of the Soul
"The Hung Lou Mêng", p. 368
A History of Chinese Literature (1901)
XXI. 110 (tr. R. Lattimore); spoken by Achilles.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)