
"A Lost Chord".
Legends and Lyrics: Second Series (1861)
Source: Hawthorn and Lavender (1901), XXI
Context: Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb.
Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom.
Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire.
Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire.
So man and woman will keep their trust,
Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust.
Yea, each with the other will lose and win,
Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in.
For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife,
And the word of Love is the Word of Life.
And they that go with the Word unsaid,
Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.
"A Lost Chord".
Legends and Lyrics: Second Series (1861)
“Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.”
Source: Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), Cymon and Iphigenia, Line 133.
Keeping Life Out of Confusion (1938)
Context: We ought to recognize that uncertainty of mind is not all a bad thing. It is a sign that your mind is still alive, still sensitive. If you are not at all confused in this day you are dead mentally and spiritually.
There is of course the peace of the cemetery. If you want that you can have it. But you will pay for such complacent serenity with blind eyes which do not see the world's fear and agony; with deaf ears, into which the still sad music of humanity never comes; with deadened nerves and unsensitized conscience.
We will never be brought to confusion, even in such a baffling and muddled world as ours, if we have a faith in a God of love as the ultimate power in the universe. The words "God is love" have this deep meaning: that everything that is against love is ultimately doomed and damned.
“There is no time to leave important words unsaid.”
“One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.”
Source: Oedipus at Colonus, Line 1616–18
You Would Have Understood Me
“She walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife.”
Canto I, stanza 3.
The Corsair (1814)