To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. read more

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

Joys too exquisite to last,
And yet more exquisite when past.

Joys too exquisite to last,
And yet more exquisite when past.

He who binds to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it read more

He who binds to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in Eternity's sunrise.

An infant when it gazes on a light,
A child the moment when it drains the breast,
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An infant when it gazes on a light,
A child the moment when it drains the breast,
A devotee when soars the Host in sight,
An Arab with a stranger for a guest,
A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,
A miser filling his most hoarded chest,
Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping
As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping.

Joys do not stay, but take wing and fly away.
[Lat., Gaudia non remanent, sed fugitiva volant.]

Joys do not stay, but take wing and fly away.
[Lat., Gaudia non remanent, sed fugitiva volant.]

All human joys are swift of wing,
For heaven doth so allot it;
That when you get read more

All human joys are swift of wing,
For heaven doth so allot it;
That when you get an easy thing,
You find you haven't got it.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart read more

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.