C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Hartley Coleridge

Be not afraid to pray—to pray is right.

Pray, if thou canst, with hope; but ever pray,

Though hope be weak or sick with long delay;

Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.

Her very frowns are fairer far

Than smiles of other maidens are.

Pray to be perfect, though material leaven

Forbid the spirit so on earth to be;

But if for any wish thou darest not pray,

Then pray to God to cast that wish away.

The crackling embers on the hearth are dead;

The indoor note of industry is still;

The latch is fast; upon the window-sill

The small birds wait not for their daily bread;

The voiceless flowers—how quietly they shed

Their nightly odours;—and the household rill

Murmurs continuous dulcet sounds that fill

The vacant expectation, and the dread

Of listening night.

The soul of man is larger than the sky,

Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark

Of the unfathomed centre.

The beauty of the picture is an abiding concrete of the painter’s vision.

Valor and power may gain a lasting memory, but where are they when the brave and mighty are departed? Their effects may remain, but they live not in them any more than the fire in the work of the potter.

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