Alexander Smith
British poet and essayist
Alexander Smith (31 December 1829 – 5 January 1867) was a Scottish poet, and labelled as one of the Spasmodic School.
Quotes
edit- We hear the wail of the remorseful winds
In their strange penance. And this wretched orb
Knows not the taste of rest; a maniac world,
Homeless and sobbing through the deep she goes.- Unrest and Childhood.
- The soul of man is like the rolling world,
One half in day, the other dipt in night;
The one has music and the flying cloud,
The other, silence and the wakeful stars.- Horton.
- Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine.
- Dreamthorp: Essays written in the Country (1863).
- The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.
- Dreamthorp: Essays written in the Country (1863).
A Life Drama and other Poems (1853)
edit- Like a pale martyr in his shirt of fire.
- Scene 2.
- In winter, when the dismal rain
Comes down in slanting lines,
And Wind, that grand old harper, smote
His thunder-harp of pines.- Scene 2.
- A poem round and perfect as a star.
- Scene 2.
- Some books are drenchèd sands
On which a great soul’s wealth lies all in heaps,
Like a wrecked argosy.- Scene 2.
- The saddest thing that befalls a soul
Is when it loses faith in God and woman.- Scene 12.
- We twain have met like the ships upon the sea,
Who hold an hour’s converse, so short, so sweet;
One little hour! And then, away they speed
On lonely paths, through mist and cloud and foam,
To meet no more.- Part iv.
City Poems (1857)
edit- Each time we love,
We turn a nearer and a broader mark
To that keen archer, Sorrow, and he strikes.- "A Boy’s Dream".
- Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.
- "The Fear of Dying".
- Everything is sweetened by risk.
- "The Fear of Dying".
- In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place to-day, it is vain to seek it there to-morrow. You can not lay a trap for it.
- "The Fear of Dying".
External links
edit- Dreamthorp: Essays Written In The Country at Project Gutenberg
- A Summer in Skye: full book available online.
- Essays by Alexander Smith at Quotidiana.org
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