Alexander Smith (1830 – 1867)
Scottish poet, and labelled as one of the Spasmodic School.
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A poem round and perfect as a star.
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.
The saddest thing that befalls a soul
Is when it loses faith in God and woman.
Like a pale martyr in his shirt of fire.
In winter, when the dismal rain
Comes down in slanting lines,
And Wind, that grand old harper, smote
His thunder-harp of pines.
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.
Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.
Each time we love,
We turn a nearer and a broader mark
To that keen archer, Sorrow, and he strikes.
Everything is sweetened by risk.
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.
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.
Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine.
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