Thomas Campbell Quotes

There shall he love when genial morn appears,
Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears.

The world was sad, the garden was a wild,
And man the hermit sigh'd — till woman smiled.

But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in.

And rival all but Shakespeare's name below.

A stoic of the woods—a man without a tear.

While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

That gems the starry girdle of the year.

Methinks, thy jubilee to keep, The first-made anthem rang On earth deliver'd from the deep, And the first poet sang. Nor ever shall the Muse's eye Unraptured greet thy beam: Theme of primeval prophecy, Be still the poet's theme!

And rustic life and poverty
Grow beautiful beneath his touch.

Another's sword has laid him low,
Another's and another's;
And every hand that dealt the blow—
Ah me! it was a brother's!

And muse on Nature with a poet's eye.

Ye are brothers! ye are men!
And we conquer but to save.

Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

What potent spirit guides the raptur'd eye To pierce the shades of dim futurity? Can Wisdom lend, with all her heav'nly pow'r, The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour? Ah, no! she darkly sees the fate of man— Her dim horizon bounded to a span; Or, if she hold an image to the view, Tis nature pictur'd too severely true.

But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.