American author & poet (1834-1865)
A silence reigns upon the air,
Upon the pansies by the shore,
Upon the violets, pale and fair,
Upon the willow, bending o'er;
The reeds and lilies silent grow,
The dark green waters silent sleep,
Save when the summer breezes blow,
Or silvery minnows leap.
GEORGE ARNOLD
"All for Love"
The living need charity more than the dead.
GEORGE ARNOLD
"The Jolly Old Pedagogue"
Experience is bitter, but its teachings we retain;
It has taught me this--who once has loved, loves never on earth again!
GEORGE ARNOLD
"Introspection"
I hold that all the evil we know on earth finds in this violence done to love its true and legitimate birth.
GEORGE ARNOLD
"Introspection"
The summer passed, and autumn's blast
Swept bleakly cold across the heather;
The bright leaves browned, 'neath skies that frowned,
Then whirled in circles to the ground,
And strewed the paths we trod together.
GEORGE ARNOLD
"The Two Autumns"
Life for the living, and rest for the dead!
GEORGE ARNOLD
"The Jolly Old Pedagogue"
I let my summer days pass idly on.
GEORGE ARNOLD
"Drift"
I love this simple maiden,
She grows upon me more and more,
And--ask the moon who 't was that kissed,
Last night upon the shore!
GEORGE ARNOLD
"Drift"
Ah, many a one has started forth with hope and purpose high;
Has fought throughout a weary life, and passed all pleasure by;
Has burst all flowery chains by which men aye have been enthralled;
Has been stone-deaf to voices sweet, that softly, sadly called;
Has scorned the flashing goblet with the bubbles on its brim;
Has turned his back on jeweled hands that madly beckoned him;
Has, in a word, condemned himself to follow out his plan
By stern and lonely labor--and has died, a conquered man!
GEORGE ARNOLD
"Wool-Gathering"
But to the lover of nature--and who has the courage to avow himself aught else?--the sea-shore can never be monotonous. The swirl and sweep of ever-shifting waters, the flying mist of foam breaking away into a gray and ghostly distance down the beach, the eternal drone of ocean, mingling itself with one's talk by day and with the light dance-music in the parlors by night--all these are active sources of a passive pleasure. And to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through half-closed eyes, the heaving waves, that mount against a dark blue sky wherein great silvery masses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the sunlit sails that fade and grow and fade along the horizon, while some fair damsel sits close by, reading ancient ballads of a simple metre, or older legends of love and romance--tell me, my eater of the fashionable lotus, is not this a diversion well worth your having?
GEORGE ARNOLD
"Why Thomas Was Discharged", Stories by American Authors
The glass of your life is darkened, and darkly through it you see distorted and ghastly fragments of duty and destiny.
GEORGE ARNOLD
"Recrimination"
'Tis but the wraith of love; yet I linger.
GEORGE ARNOLD
"Alone by the Hearth"
What rare days were those,
When my chief duty was to write a song.
GEORGE ARNOLD
"Drift"
The tall grass waves o'er lowly graves,
The golden sunshine floods the meadows,
And in the breeze the willow-trees,
That guard the tomb of Eloise,
Wave to and fro, with flickering shadows.
GEORGE ARNOLD
"The Two Autumns"