Quotations by:
    Smith, Alexander

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.

Alexander Smith (1830–1867) Scottish poet

“A Life-Drama,” Sc. IV (1853)

Full text.

A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles on the road.

Alexander Smith (1830–1867) Scottish poet

“Men of Letters”

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.

Alexander Smith (1830–1867) Scottish poet

“The Fear of Dying” (1857)

Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.

Alexander Smith (1830–1867) Scottish poet

“The Fear of Dying” (1857)

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.

Alexander Smith (1830–1867) Scottish poet

“Unrest and Childhood”

Full text.

Men hold the anniversaries of their birth, of their marriage, of the birth of their first-born, and they hold — although they spread no feast, and ask no friends to assist — many another anniversary besides. On many a day in every year does a man remember what took place on that self-same day in some former year, and chews the sweet or bitter herb of memory, as the case may be.

Alexander Smith (1830–1867) Scottish poet

Dreamthorp (1863)

Good humor and generosity carry the day with the popular heart all the world over.

Alexander Smith (1830–1867) Scottish poet

Dreamthorp, ch. 12 (1863)