Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

Great is the art of beginning.

Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend.

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

Hospitality sitting with Gladness.

When we reflect that all the aspects of Nature, all the emotions of the soul, and all the events of life, have been the subjects of poetry for hundreds and thousands of years, we can hardly wonder that there should be so many resemblances and coincidences of expression among poets, but rather that they are not more numerous and more striking.

Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, has earned a night's repose.

I am weary of your quarrels,
Weary of your wars and bloodshed,
Weary of your prayers for vengeance,
Of your wranglings and dissensions

The story, from beginning to end, I found again in a heart of a friend.

Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work, rather than its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as the bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.

Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound
Seems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught;
Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought
As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound
The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound;
For I am weary, and am overwrought
With too much toil, with too much care distraught,
And with the iron crown of anguish crowned.
Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek,
O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released
I breathe again uninterrupted breath!
Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek
Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast
Whereof the greater mystery is death!

The first pressure of sorrow crushes out from our hearts the best wine; afterwards the constant weight of it brings forth bitterness, — the taste and stain from the lees of the vat.

Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest.

Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;
Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.

The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.