“Thus life by life and love by love
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath and death by death
We followed the chain of change.”

Evolution (1895; 1909)
Context: Thus life by life and love by love
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath and death by death
We followed the chain of change.
Till there came a time in the law of life
When o’er the nursing sod,
The shadows broke and soul awoke
In a strange, dim dream of God.

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 "Thus life by life and love by love We passed through the cycles strange, And breath by breath and death by death We …" by Langdon Smith?
Langdon Smith photo
Langdon Smith 20
American journalist 1858–1908

Related quotes

Emily Dickinson photo

“Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
The exponent of breath.”

Love, p. 167
Collected Poems (1993)
Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Adelaide Anne Procter photo
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo

“For we know the clod, by the grace of God
Will quicken with voice and breath;
And we know that Love, with gentle hand
Will beckon from death to death.”

These lines just before the final four do not appear in most published versions, but were included in the version published in The Book of Poetry (1927) edited by Edwin Markham. It is not known whether they existed in the second newspaper publication, of which no copies are known to survive, or derived from manuscript variants.
Evolution (1895; 1909)

Anne Rice photo
Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo

“I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.”

No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

“Vanquished in life, his death
By beauty made amends:
The passing of his breath
Won his defeated ends.”

Lionel Johnson (1867–1902) English poet

By the Statue of King Charles at Charing Cross (1895)

Alexis Karpouzos photo
Guy De Maupassant photo
Shane Claiborne photo

Related topics