Edmund Clarence Stedman Quotes & Sayings

O fresh-lit dawn! immortal life!
O Earth's betrothal, sweet and true! — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Alas, by what rude fate Our lives, like ships at sea, an instant meet, Then part forever on their courses fleet. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Yes, there's a luck in most things; and in none more than being born at the right time. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Worth, courage, honor, these indeed
Your sustenance and birthright are. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Faith and joy are the ascensive forces of song. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Genius does not need a special language; it uses newly whatever tongue it finds. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

The poet who does not revere his art, and believe in its sovereignty, is not born to wear the purple. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

A poet must sing for his own people. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Science has but one fashion-to lose nothing once gained. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

But every human path leads on to God;
He holds a myriad finer threads than gold,
And strong as holy wishes, drawing us
With delicate tension upward to Himself. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

The imagination never dies. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Music waves eternal wands,
Enchantress of the souls of mortals! — Edmund Clarence Stedman

A critic must accept what is best in a poet, and thus become his best encourager. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

War! war! war!
Heaven aid the right!
God move the hero's arm in the fearful fight!
God send the women sleep in the long, long night,
When the breasts on whose strength they leaned shall heave no more. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

The critic's first labor is the task of distinguishing between men, as history and their works display them, and the ideals which one and another have conspired to urge upon his acceptance. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine art; the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in which to reach true excellence. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Men are egotists, and not all tolerant of one man's selfhood; they do not always deem the amities elective. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Lo, as I gaze, the statured man,
Built up from you large hand appears:
A type that nature wills to plan
But once in all a people's years. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Is there a rarer being,
Is there a fairer sphere
Where the strong are not unseeing,
And the harvests are not sere;
Where, ere the seasons dwindle
They yield their due return;
Where the lamps of knowledge kindle
While the flames of youth still burn? — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Above the clouds I lift my wing
To hear the bells of Heaven ring;
Some of their music, though my fights be wild,
To Earth I bring;
Then let me soar and sing! — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Look on this cast, and know the hand That bore a nation in its hold; From this mute witness understand What Lincoln was - how large of mould. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Give us a man of God's own mould
Born to marshall his fellow-men;
One whose fame is not bought and sold
At the stroke of a politician's pen.
Give us the man of thousands ten,
Fit to do as well as to plan;
Give us a rallying-cry, and then
Abraham Lincoln, give us a Man. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Progress comes by experiment, and this from ennui that leads to voyages, wars, revolutions, and plainly to change in the arts of expression; that cries out to the imagination, and is the nurse of the invention whereof we term necessity the mother. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Fashion is a potency in art, making it hard to judge between the temporary and the lasting. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

The weary August days are long;
The locusts sing a plaintive song,
The cattle miss their master's call
When they see the sunset shadows fall. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Do your heart and head keep pace? When does hoary Love expire, When do frosts put out the fire? Can its embers burn below All that chill December snow? — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Natural emotion is the soul of poetry, as melody is of music; the same faults are engendered by over-study of either art; there is a lack of sincerity, of irresistible impulse in both the poet and the, composer. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

The poet is a creator, not an iconoclast, and never will tamely endeavor to say in prose what can only be expressed in song. — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Let the winds blow! a fiercer gale
Is wild within me! what may quell
That sullen tempest? I must sail
Whither, O whither, who can tell! — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Whither away, Bluebird, Whither away? The blast is chill, yet in the upper sky Thou still canst find the color of thy wing, The hue of May. Warbler, why speed, thy southern flight? ah, why, Thou, too, whose song first told us of the Spring? Whither away? — Edmund Clarence Stedman