John Keble Quotes

Sweet is the smile of home; the mutual look
When hearts are of each other sure;
Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook,
The haunt of all affections pure.

As fire is kindled by fire, so is a poet's mind kindled by contact with a brother poet.

When you find yourself, as I daresay you sometimes do, overpowered as it were by melancholy, the best way is to go out, and do something kind to somebody or other.

Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without Thee I cannot live:
Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without Thee I dare not die.

The trivial round, the common task,
Would furnish all we ought to ask.

Why should we faint and fear to live alone,
Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die,
Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh?

The voice that breathed o'er Eden,
That earliest wedding day,
The primal marriage blessing,
It hath not passed away.

'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose
Friends out of sight, in faith to muse
How grows in Paradise our store.

Love masters agony; the soul that seemed
Forsaken, feels her present God again,
And in her Father's arms
Contented dies away.

Sun of my soul! thou Saviour dear,
It is not night if Thou be near:
Oh, may no earth-born cloud arise
To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes!

The watchful mother tarries nigh
Though sleep have closed her infant's eye,
For should he wake, and find her gone,
She knows she could not bear his moan.

The deeds we do, the words we say,—
Into still air they seem to fleet,
We count them ever past;
But they shall last,
In the dread judgment they
And we shall meet!

Time's waters will not ebb, nor stay.

Give us grace to listen well.

And help us, this and every day,
To live more nearly as we pray.