Robert Southey Quotes

Where Washington hath left
His awful memory
A light for after times!

He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large, and smooth, and round.

You are old, Father William." the young man cried,
"The few locks which are left you are grey;
You are hale, Father William—a hearty old man:
Now tell me the reason, I pray.

Innocence is like polished armour; it adorns, and it defends.

Will ye believe
The wonders of the ocean? how its shoals
Sprang from the wave, like flashing light; .. took wing,
And, twinkling with a silver glitterance,
Flew through the air and sunshine? yet were they
To sight less wondrous than the tribe who swam,
Following like fowlers, with uplifted eye,
Their falling quarry: .. language cannot paint
Their splendid tints! though in blue ocean seen,
Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,
In all its rich variety of shades,
Suffus'd with glowing gold.

How does the water
Come down at Lodore?

Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe;
But ’tis the happy that have called thee so.

[I]f there be any truer measure of a man, than by what he does, it must be, by what he gives.

So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store.

They sin who tell us love can die;
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
. . . . .
Love is indestructible,
Its holy flame forever burneth;
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.
. . . . .
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of love is there.

How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures; nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven:
In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths;
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!

[H]e that despairs limits an infinite power to a finite apprehension, and measures Providence by his own little contracted model.

[W]onder is from surprise; and surprise ceases upon experience.

Wild dreams! but such
As Plato lov'd; such as with holy zeal
Our Milton worshipp'd. Blessed hopes! awhile
From man with-held, even to the latter days
When Christ shall come, and all things be fulfill'd.

From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps
In its own little lake.