Alexander Smith

Alexander Smith (31 December 1829 – 5 January 1867) was a Scottish poet, and labelled as one of the Spasmodic School.

Quotes

 * 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.
 * Unrest and Childhood.


 * 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.
 * Horton.


 * Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine.
 * Dreamthorp: Essays written in the Country (1863).


 * The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.
 * Dreamthorp: Essays written in the Country (1863).

A Life Drama and other Poems (1853)

 * Like a pale martyr in his shirt of fire.
 * Scene 2.


 * In winter, when the dismal rain Comes down in slanting lines, And Wind, that grand old harper, smote His thunder-harp of pines.
 * Scene 2.


 * A poem round and perfect as a star.
 * Scene 2.


 * Some books are drenchèd sands On which a great soul’s wealth lies all in heaps, Like a wrecked argosy.
 * Scene 2.


 * The saddest thing that befalls a soul Is when it loses faith in God and woman.
 * Scene 12.


 * 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.
 * Part iv.

City Poems (1857)

 * Each time we love, We turn a nearer and a broader mark To that keen archer, Sorrow, and he strikes.
 * "A Boy’s Dream".


 * Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.
 * "The Fear of Dying".


 * Everything is sweetened by risk.
 * "The Fear of Dying".


 * 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.
 * "The Fear of Dying".