We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of sadde… - Percy Bysshe Shelley
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We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major English romantic poets, widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets in the English language; husband of Mary Shelley.
Biography information from
Wikiquote·
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, After Amelia Curran (Public domain / CC0)
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Shorter versions of this quote
We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell Of saddest thought.
Man has no right to kill his brother, it is no excuse that he does so in uniform. He only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.
Alas! that all we loved of him should be, But for our grief, as if it had not been, And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me! Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene The actors or spectators?
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