WIST Quotations

Millay, Edna St. Vincent -- Poem (1921-10-31), “The Philosopher,” st. 1, Ainslee’s Magazine, Vol. 48, No. 3

Dave — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 22:16:41 +0000

And what are you that, missing you,
I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days
With weeping for your sake?

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) American poet
Poem (1921-10-31), “The Philosopher,” st. 1, Ainslee’s Magazine, Vol. 48, No. 3
(Source)

First collected in A Few Figs from Thistles (1922).

Byron, George Gordon, Lord -- “Stanzas for Music,” st. 1 (1815-03)

Dave — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 14:26:20 +0000

There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
“Stanzas for Music,” st. 1 (1815-03)
(Source)

Euripides -- Alcestis [Ἄλκηστις], c. l. 415 [Chorus] (438 BC) [tr. Leuschnig]

Dave — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 22:52:28 +0000

You are neither the first nor the last of mortals
to lose a good wife. You have to learn
that death is a debt we all must pay.

[οὐ γάρ τι πρῶτος οὐδὲ λοίσθιος βροτῶν
γυναικὸς ἐσθλῆς ἤμπλακες· γίγνωσκε δὲ
ὡς πᾶσιν ἡμῖν κατθανεῖν ὀφείλεται.]

Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Alcestis [Ἄλκηστις], c. l. 415 [Chorus] (438 BC) [tr. Leuschnig]
(Source)

Alt. trans.:

Thou art by no means the first nor yet shalt be the last of men to lose a wife of worth; know this, we all of us are debtors unto death.
[tr. Coleridge (1910)]

Thou shalt not be the last, nor yet the first,
To lose a noble wife. Be brave, and know
To die is but a debt that all men owe.
[tr. Murray (1915)]

Not first of mortals thou, nor shalt be last
To lose a noble wife; and, be thou sure,
From us, from all, this debt is due -- to die.
[tr. Way (1984)]

You are neither the first nor the last mortal
Who has lost a good wife. Understand this:
Dying is a debt we all have to pay.
[tr. @sentantiq (2020)]

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- Letter to Thomas Carlyle (1842-02-28)

Dave — Tue, 20 Mar 2018 13:36:50 +0000

My son, a perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life. You can never sympathize with me; you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of all.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Letter to Thomas Carlyle (1842-02-28)
(Source)

Lewis, C.S. -- A Grief Observed, ch. 1 (1961)

Dave — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 02:17:32 +0000

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.
At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
A Grief Observed, ch. 1 (1961)
(Source)

After the death of his wife, Joy Davidman. Opening words.

Scalzi, John -- Old Man’s War (2005)

Dave — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 00:19:01 +0000

For as much as I hate the cemetery, I’ve been grateful it’s here, too. I miss my wife. It’s easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she’s never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was alive.

John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Old Man’s War (2005)

Lewis, C.S. -- A Grief Observed (1961)

Dave — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 14:19:14 +0000

Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love. It follows marriage as normally as marriage follows courtship or as autumn follows summer.

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
A Grief Observed (1961)

Xenophon -- (Attributed)

Dave — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 12:39:47 +0000

Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.

Xenophon (c. 431-355 BC) Greek historian and essayist
(Attributed)
(Source)

In Anon. Mental Recreation Or, Select Maxims, Sayings And Observations Of Philosophers (1831).

Wotton, Henry -- “Upon the Death of Sir Albertus Moreton’s Wife” (1651)

Dave — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 14:51:45 +0000

He first deceased; she for a little tried
To live without him: liked it not, and died.

Henry Wotton (1568-1639) English author, diplomat, politician
“Upon the Death of Sir Albertus Moreton’s Wife” (1651)

Mountbatten (Lord) -- (Attributed)

Dave — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 14:38:40 +0000

I can’t think of a more wonderful thanksgiving for the life I have had than that everyone should be jolly at my funeral.

Lord Mountbatten (1900-1979) British statesman and naval officer (Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, b. Prince Louis of Battenberg)
(Attributed)
(Source)

Quoted in Richard Hough, Mountbatten (1980).

Millay, Edna St. Vincent -- Sonnet 2: “Time does not bring relief,” Renascence: and Other Poems (1917)

Dave — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 16:39:08 +0000

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, — so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) American poet
Sonnet 2: “Time does not bring relief,” Renascence: and Other Poems (1917)
(Source)

The sonnets were not originally numbered, nor did they include titles. Later collections with this poem reduced the number of exclamation points (e.g.).

Mann, Thomas -- The Magic Mountain (1924)

Dave — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 14:50:24 +0000

A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.

Thomas Mann (1875-1955) German writer, critic, philanthropist, Nobel laureate [Paul Thomas Mann]
The Magic Mountain (1924)

Dickinson, Emily -- “The Bustle in a House” (c. 1866)

Dave — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 17:47:22 +0000

The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon Earth —
The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) American poet
“The Bustle in a House” (c. 1866)

Carlyle, Jane -- Letter to Thomas Carlyle (27 Dec 1853)

Dave — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:06:55 +0000

Never does one feel oneself so utterly helpless as in trying to speak comfort for great bereavement. I will not try it. Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother.

Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801-1866) Scottish letter-writer, wife of Thomas Carlyle [née Jane Baillie Welsh]
Letter to Thomas Carlyle (27 Dec 1853)

Auden, W. H. -- “Stop All the Clocks [Funeral Blues],” st. 3 (1936)

Dave — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:51:26 +0000

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

W. H. Auden (1907-1973) Anglo-American poet [Wystan Hugh Auden]
“Stop All the Clocks [Funeral Blues],” st. 3 (1936)
(Source)

This stanza is not in the original version of the poem, for the verse play The Ascent of F6 (1936) (with Christopher Isherwood).

Instead, it appears in the revised cabaret song that Auden wrote in 1937-1938. It is this latter version, less tied to the play, that is commonly collected, and that gained popularity when recited in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).

Smith, Logan Pearsall -- Afterthoughts, ch. 2 “Age and Death” (1931)

Dave — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:16:00 +0000

I cannot forgive my friends for dying; I do not find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing.

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, ch. 2 “Age and Death” (1931)
(Source)