Thomas Bailey Aldrich Life Quotations

That was indeed to live -- at one bold swoop to wrest from darkling death the best that death to life can give.

Though I be shut in darkness, and become insentient dust blown idly here and there, I count oblivion a scant price to pay for having once had held against my lip life's brimming cup of hydromel and rue--for having once known woman's holy love and a child's kiss, and for a little space been boon companion to the Day and Night, Fed on the odors of the summer dawn, and folded in the beauty of the stars. Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay, and serve the potter as he turns his wheel, I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears!

O harp of life, so speedily unstrung!

So precious life is! Even to the old, the hours are as a miser's coins!

How fugitive and brief is mortal life between the budding and the falling leaf.