Robert Bridges Quotes

Beneath the crisp and wintry carpet hid
A million buds but stay their blossoming
And trustful birds have built their nests amid
The shuddering boughs, and only wait to sing
Till one soft shower from the south shall bid
And hither tempt the pilgrim steps of Spring.

On such a night, when Air has loosed
Its guardian grasp on blood and brain,
Old terrors then of god or ghost
Creep from their caves to life again.

My delight and thy delight
Walking, like two angels white,
In the gardens of the night.

The broad cloud-driving moon in the clear sky
Lifts o’er the firs her shining shield,
And in her tranquil light
Sleep falls on forest and field.
See! sleep hath fallen: the trees are asleep:
The night is come. The land is wrapt in sleep.

I love all beauteous things,
I seek and adore them.

But I can tell — let truth be told —
That love will change in growing old;
Though day by day is nought to see,
So delicate his motions be.

I will not let thee go.
I hold thee by too many bands:
Thou sayest farewell, and lo!
I have thee by the hands,
And will not let thee go.

To-morrow it seem
Like the empty words of a dream
Remembered on waking.

Repudiation of pleasur is a reason'd folly
of imperfection. Ther is no motiv can rebate
or decompose the intrinsic joy of activ life,
whereon all function whatsoever in man is based.

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town.

Man's Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense,
that tho' she guide his highest flight heav'nward, and teach him
dignity morals manners and human comfort,
she can delicatly and dangerously bedizen
the rioting joys that fringe the sad pathways of Hell.

Surely thy body is thy mind,
For in thy face is nought to find,
Only thy soft unchristened smile,
That shadows neither love nor guile.

When Death to either shall come—
I pray it be first to me.

Angels’ song, comforting
as the comfort of Christ
When he spake tenderly
to his sorrowful flock.

The constellated sounds
ran sprinkling on earth’s floor
As the dark vault above
with stars was spangled o’er.