Richard Henry Stoddard
There are balms for all our pain:
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.
Richard Henry Stoddard (July 2, 1825 – May 12, 1903) was a U.S. critic and poet, was born in Hingham, Massachusetts.
Quotes
[edit]Early Poems (1852)
[edit]- Early Poems from The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1880), pp. 1–50. Poems first published in Poems (Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1852), but in some cases subsequently revised or given new titles.
- We have two lives about us,
Two worlds in which we dwell;
Within us, and without us,
Alternate Heaven and Hell:
Without, the somber Real,
Within our hearts of hearts, the beautiful Ideal!- "The Castle in the Air", p. 3.
- Pale in her fading bowers the Summer stands,
Like a new Niobe with claspèd hands,
Silent above the flowers, her children lost,
Slain by the arrows of the early frost.- "Ode", p. 18.
- In the earlier version, the third line is: "Mute o'er the faded flowers, her children lost" (Poems, 1852, p. 31).
- Heaven is not gone, but we are blind with tears,
Groping our way along the downward slope of Years!- "Hymn to the Beautiful", p. 32.
- A voice of greeting from the wind was sent,
The mists enfolded me with soft white arms,
The birds did sing to lap me in content,
The rivers wove their charms,
And every little daisy in the grass
Did look into my face and smile to see me pass.- "Hymn to the Beautiful", p. 32.
- All Love is Beauty, and all Beauty—Love!
- "Hymn to the Beautiful", p. 33.
- We love in others what we lack ourselves,
And would be every thing but what we are.- "Arcadian Idyl", p. 37.
Songs of Summer (1856)
[edit]- Songs of Summer (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1856)
- There are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain:
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.- "The Flight of Youth", p. 5. Untitled on first appearance. Title from The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1880), p. 53.
- Silence is the speech of love,
The music of the spheres above.- "The Speech of Love", p. 12.
- Children are the keys of Paradise.
… They alone are good and wise,
Because their thoughts, their very lives, are prayer.- "The Children's Prayer", p. 113.
The Book of the East and Other Poems (1871)
[edit]- The Book of the East and Other Poems (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1871)
- Not what we would, but what we must,
Makes up the sum of living;
Heaven is both more and less than just
In taking and in giving.- "The Country Life", p. 146.
- A face at the window,
A tap on the pane:
Who is it that wants me
To-night in the rain?- "The Messenger at Night", p. 154.
- It beckons, I follow.
Good by to the light!
I am going, oh! whither?
Out into the night!- "The Messenger at Night". p. 155.
- Joy may be a miser,
But Sorrow’s purse is free.- "Persian Songs", p. 212.
- Day and night my thoughts incline
To the blandishments of wine:
Jars were made to drain, I think,
Wine, I know, was made to drink!- "Persian Songs". p. 213.
The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard (1880)
[edit]- The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1880)
- I have been sojourning late
Among the pleasant places of my Past,
The green and quiet neighborhoods of Thought,
In which I wandered in my wayward youth;
With no companion but the constant Muse,
Who sought me when I needed her—ah when
Did I not need her, solitary else?- "Proem", p. v.
- Once when the days were ages,
And the old Earth was young,
The high gods and the sages
From Nature's golden pages
Her open secrets wrung.
Each questioned each to know
Whence came the Heavens above, and whence the Earth below.- "Brahma's Answer", p. 386.
- There is no death—the thing that we call death
Is but another, sadder name for life,
Which is itself an insufficient name,
Faint recognition of that unknown Life—
That Power whose shadow is the Universe.- "Hymn to the Sea", p. 498.
