Within and Without quotes

It is a silly devil to grip so hard;— He should let go his hold, and then he has you. If you’ll not come, I’ll leave the light with you. Hark to the chorus! Brother Stephen sings.

Always merry, and never drunk. That’s the life of the jolly monk.

They say the first monks were lonely men, Praying each in his lonely den, Rising up to kneel again, Each a skinny male Magdalene, Peeping scared from out his hole Like a burrowing rabbit or a mole; But years ring changes as they roll—

See, I am low; yea, very low; but thou Art high, and thou canst lift me up to thee. I am a child, a fool before thee, God; But thou hast made my weakness as my strength.

I am an emptiness for thee to fill; My soul, a cavern for thy sea.

I lie Diffused, abandoning myself to thee. … —I will look up, if life should fail in looking. Ah me! A stream cut from my parent-spring! Ah me! A life lost from its father-life!

What strange things she has spoken! My heart is beating as if it would spend Its life in this one night, and beat it out. And well it may, for there is more of life In one such moment than in many years!

Pure life is measured by intensity, Not by the how much of the crawling clock.

Is that a bar of moonlight stretched across The window-blind? or is it but a band Of whiter cloth my thrifty dame has sewed Upon the other?—’Tis the moon herself, Low in the west. ’Twas such a moon as this—

In anguish. ’Tis ever so. Words are the living things! There is no spirit—save what’s born of words!

Words are the bonds that of two souls make one!

Words the security of heart to heart! God, make me patient! God, I pray thee, God!

It clings about The present, far dragging like a robe; but ever Forsakes the past, and lets its hues shine out: On past and future pours the light of heaven. The Commonplace is of the present mind.

The Lovely is the True. The Beautiful Is what God made.

Men from whose narrow bosoms The great child-heart has withered, backward look To their first-love, and laugh, and call it folly, A mere delusion to which youth is subject, As childhood to diseases. They know better!

Ah, no! I spoke of lovely, beauteous things:

Beauty and sadness always go together.

Nature thought Beauty too golden to go forth Upon the earth without a meet alloy. If Beauty had been born the twin of Gladness, Poets had never needed this dream-life; Each blessed man had but to look beside him, And be more blest.

If true to her, though troubled sore, I cannot choose but be; Thou, who art peace forevermore, Art very true to me. If I am low and sinful, bring More love where need is rife;

Thou knowest what an awful thing It is to be a life.

Hast thou not wisdom to enwrap My waywardness about, In doubting safety on the lap Of Love that knows no doubt? Lo! Lord, I sit in thy wide space, My child upon my knee;

Aloud.

’Tis where they lay them when the story’s done.

What! lay the boys and girls?

Yes—no; for I should leave you then. Oh, my head! Mother, mother, dear mother!—Sing to me, father. He tries to sing.

Oh the hurt, the hurt, and the hurt of love!

Wherever the sun shines, the waters go. It hurts the snowdrop, it hurts the dove, God on his throne, and man below.