Henry Austin Dobson Quotes

“Time goes, you say? Ah no!Alas, Time stays, we go;Or else, were this not so, What need to chain the hours,For Youth were always ours?Time goes, you say?-ah no!Ours is the eyes' deceitOf men whose flying feetLead through some landscape low; We pass, and think we seeThe earth's fixed surface flee:-Alas, Time stays,-we go!Once in the days of old,Your locks were curling gold,And mine had shamed the crow. Now, in the self-same stage,We've reached the silver age;Time goes, you say?-ah no!Once, when my voice was strong,I filled the woods with songTo praise your 'rose' and 'snow'; My bird, that sang, is dead;Where are your roses fled?Alas, Time stays,-we go!See, in what traversed ways,What backward Fate delaysThe hopes we used to know; Where are our old desires?-Ah, where those vanished fires?Time goes, you say?-ah no!How far, how far, O Sweet,The past behind our feetLies in the even-glow! Now, on the forward way,Let us fold hands, and pray;Alas, Time stays,-we go!”

“Time goes, you say? Ah no!Alas, Time stays, we go;Or else, were this not so, What need to chain the hours,For Youth were always ours?Time goes, you say?-ah no!Ours is the eyes' deceitOf men whose flying feetLead through some landscape low; We pass, and think we seeThe earth's fixed surface flee:-Alas, Time stays,-we go!Once in the days of old,Your locks were curling gold,And mine had shamed the crow. Now, in the self-same stage,We've reached the silver age;Time goes, you say?-ah no!Once, when my voice was strong,I filled the woods with songTo praise your 'rose' and 'snow'; My bird, that sang, is dead;Where are your roses fled?Alas, Time stays,-we go!See, in what traversed ways,What backward Fate delaysThe hopes we used to know; Where are our old desires?-Ah, where those vanished fires?Time goes, you say?-ah no!How far, how far, O Sweet,The past behind our feetLies in the even-glow! Now, on the forward way,Let us fold hands, and pray;Alas, Time stays,-we go!”

“Please God, please suh, don't let him love nobody else but me. Maybe Ah'm is uh fool, Lawd, lak dey say, but Lawd, Ah been so lonesome, and Ah been waitin', Jesus. Ah done waited uh long time.”

“Ah, what an awe great God!”

“Of course you would, Mitt," Reagan said. "Well, I’m glad we understand each other, and I think your father would be proud of you being in his old spot, and I want you to know that when I’m choosing my Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, your resumé will be on the very top of the pile. It’s been great chatting with you but you know, I have to find a vice presidential candidate, and soon.”“Ha, ha, ha, ah it’s been great chatting with you, too, Mr. President, and—”Reagan cocked his head slightly, smiled, and caught the eye of a minion; a moment later Romney had been deposited outside the door like a discarded room service tray, having barely had time to shift from ha, ha, ha back to ah…ah…”

“Ah, adventure! Ah, romance! Ah, courtly graces and the noble gestures! Don't you wish you knew people like that? Don't you wish we could still walk around in cloaks and boots and breeches, with leather doublets and flowing white dueling shirts and swords strapped around our waists? Of course, if we did, given the way things are today, there'd be people out there lobbying for sword control, and we'd need a National Sword Association and bumper stickers that would read "Swords don't kill people, knights kill people," and there would be a five-day waiting period and background check before you could buy a rapier. We'd have drive-by lungings and people would be afraid of children carrying broadswords to school. "Milady" would be regard as a sexist term and feminists would go absolutely berserk if any woman called a man "Milord." Ralph Nader would probably get quarter horses banned because they are too small and unsafe in a collision and someone would figure out a way to put seat belts and air bags on our saddles. That's why people join the SCA and read fantasy novels, because the real world sucks.”

“Ah, Lord God be merciful to us all!”

“I WANT her though, to take the same from me.She touches me as if I were herself, her own.She has not realized yet, that fearful thing, thatI am the other,she thinks we are all of one piece.It is painfully untrue.I want her to touch me at last, ah, on the root andquick of my darknessand perish on me, as I have perished on her.Then, we shall be two and distinct, we shall haveeach our separate being.And that will be pure existence, real liberty.Till then, we are confused, a mixture, unresolved,unextricated one from the other.It is in pure, unutterable resolvedness, distinctionof being, that one is free,not in mixing, merging, not in similarity.When she has put her hand on my secret, darkestsources, the darkest outgoings,when it has struck home to her, like a death, "this is _him!_"she has no part in it, no part whatever,it is the terrible _other_,when she knows the fearful _other flesh_, ah, dark-ness unfathomable and fearful, contiguous and concrete,when she is slain against me, and lies in a heaplike one outside the house,when she passes away as I have passed awaybeing pressed up against the _other_,then I shall be glad, I shall not be confused with her,I shall be cleared, distinct, single as if burnished in silver,having no adherence, no adhesion anywhere,one clear, burnished, isolated being, unique,and she also, pure, isolated, complete,two of us, unutterably distinguished, and in unutterable conjunction.Then we shall be free, freer than angels, ah, perfect.VIIIAFTER that, there will only remain that all mendetach themselves and become unique,that we are all detached, moving in freedom morethan the angels,conditioned only by our own pure single being,having no laws but the laws of our own being.Every human being will then be like a flower, untrammelled.Every movement will be direct.Only to be will be such delight, we cover our faceswhen we think of itlest our faces betray us to some untimely fiend.Every man himself, and therefore, a surpassingsingleness of mankind.The blazing tiger will spring upon the deer, un-dimmed,the hen will nestle over her chickens,we shall love, we shall hate,but it will be like music, sheer utterance,issuing straight out of the unknown,the lightning and the rainbow appearing in usunbidden, unchecked,like ambassadors.We shall not look before and after.We shall _be_, _now_.We shall know in full.We, the mystic NOW.(From the poem the Manifesto)”

“Yet Ah that Spring should vanish with the Rose. That Youth's sweetscented manuscript should close! The Nightingale that in the branches sang Ah whence and whither flown again who knows?”

“What is enlightenment? In the Korean tradition of Tao, it is known a Mu-Ah (Mu means “No” or “Nothing” and Ah means “Me”). It is no-me-ness, or egoless-ness. It means realizing the true, unchanging nature of the person you happen to be.”

“Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, "On! on!" — but o'er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast.”