“O Balder, he who fashion’d us,
And bade us live and move,
Shall weave for Death’s sad heavenly hair
Immortal flowers of love.”

—  Robert Williams Buchanan

Balder the Beautiful (1877)
Context: “O Balder, he who fashion’d us,
And bade us live and move,
Shall weave for Death’s sad heavenly hair
Immortal flowers of love.
“Ah! never fail’d my servant Death,
Whene’er I named his name,—
But at my bidding he hath flown
As swift as frost or flame.
“Yea, as a sleuth-hound tracks a man,
And finds his form, and springs,
So hath he hunted down the gods
As well as human things!
“Yet only thro’ the strength of Death
A god shall fall or rise —
A thousand lie on the cold snows,
Stone still, with marble eyes.
“But whosoe’er shall conquer Death,
Tho’ mortal man he be,
Shall in his season rise again,
And live, with thee, and me!
“And whosoe’er loves mortals most
Shall conquer Death the best,
Yea, whosoe’er grows beautiful
Shall grow divinely blest.”
The white Christ raised his shining face
To that still bright’ning sky.
“Only the beautiful shall abide,
Only the base shall die!”

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 Balder, he who fashion’d us, And bade us live and move, Shall weave for Death’s sad heavenly hair Immortal flowers…" by Robert Williams Buchanan?
Robert Williams Buchanan photo
Robert Williams Buchanan 18
Scottish poet, novelist and dramatist 1841–1901

Related quotes

Cat Stevens photo

“O love! O love!
Be with us always
We who will perish salute death
Life alone goes on!”
O caritas, O caritas nobis semper sit amor mos perituri mortem salutamus — ah, ah sola resurgit vita

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

O caritas, O caritas
nobis semper sit amor
mos perituri mortem salutamus — ah, ah
sola resurgit vita
"O' Caritas" (co-written with Andreas Toumazis and Jeremy Taylor)
Song lyrics, Catch Bull at Four (1972)

Anne Rice photo

“We shall live even in this state of living death, we shall love, we shall feel, we shall defy all who would judge and destroy us.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“May we solemnly realize that we shall never be true sons of our heavenly Father until we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)
Context: Jesus is eternally right. History is replete with the bleached bones of nations that refused to listen to him. May we in the twentieth century hear and follow his words-before it is too late. May we solemnly realize that we shall never be true sons of our heavenly Father until we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

“Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse:
Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

"The Shape of the Fire," ll. 73-77
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)
Context: Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse:
Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms.
Rain sweetened the cave and the dove still called;
The flowers leaned on themselves, the flowers in hollows;
And love, love sang toward.

Mark Twain photo

“Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all — the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Memorandum written on his deathbed
Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

Pindar photo

“Do not yearn, O my soul, for immortal life!
Use to the utmost
the skill that is yours.”

Pindar (-517–-437 BC) Ancient Greek poet

Pythian 3, line 61-62.
Variant translation: Seek not, my soul, immortal life, but make the most of the resources that are within your reach.

John Lancaster Spalding photo

“Love finds us young and keeps us so: immortal himself, he permits not age to enter the hearts where he reigns.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 39

Paul of Tarsus photo

“God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”

Paul of Tarsus (5–67) Early Christian apostle and missionary

2:1-10 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+2&version=KJV;SBLGNT (KJV)
Epistle to the Ephesians
Context: And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

William Wordsworth photo

“Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares!—
The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Personal Talk, Stanza 4.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Related topics