Philip James Bailey (22 April 1816 – 6 September 1902) was an English Spasmodic poet, best known as the author of Festus.
Wan night, the shadow goer, came stepping in.
All things that speak of heaven speak of peace.
The worst way to improve the world is to condemn it.
Necessity, like electricity, is in ourselves and all things, and no more without us than within us.
It is sad To see the light of beauty wane away, Know eyes are dimming, bosoms shrivelling, feet Losing their springs, and limbs their lily roundness; But it is worse to feel the heart-spring gone, To lose hope, care not for the coming thing, And feel all things go to decay within us.
Art is a man's nature; nature is God's art.
The value of a thought cannot be told.
The poet's pen is the true divining rod Which trembles towards the inner founts of feeling; Bringing to light and use, else hid from all, The many sweet clear sources which we have of good and beauty in our own deep bosoms; And marks the variations of all mind As does the needle.
I am tired of looking on what is, One might as well see beauty never more, As look upon it with an empty eye. I would this world were over. I am tired.
Dewdrops, Nature's tears, which she Sheds in her own breast for the fair which die. The sun insists on gladness; but at night, When he is gone, poor Nature loves to weep.
Lips like rosebuds peeping out of snow.
Music tells no truths.
When I forget that the stars shine in air-- When I forget that beauty is in stars-- When I forget that love with beauty is-- Will I forget thee: till then all things else.
America, thou half-brother of the world; with something good and bad of every land.
Stars which stand as thick as dewdrops on the field of heaven.
True faith nor biddeth nor abideth form, The bended knee, the eye uplift; is all Which men need render; all which God can bear. What to the faith are forms? A passing speck, A crow upon the sky.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Death, thou art infinite; it is life is little.
Look on the bee upon the wing 'mong flowers; How brave, how bright his life! then mark, him hiv'd, Cramp'd, cringing in his self-built, social cell, Thus it is in the world-hive; most where men Lie deep in cities as in drifts.
Imagination is the air of mind.