6 Quotes by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

My True Love Hath My Heart and I Have HisNone ever was in love with me but grief.She wooed me from the day that I was born;She stole my playthings first, the jealous thief,And left me there forlorn.The birds that in my garden would have sung,She scared away with her unending moan;She slew my lovers too when I was young,And left me there alone.Grief, I have cursed thee often—now at lastTo hate thy name I am no longer free;Caught in thy bony arms and prisoned fast,I love no love but thee.

We Never Said FarewellWe never said farewell, nor even lookedOur last upon each other, for no signWas made when we the linkèd chain unhookedAnd broke the level line.And here we dwell together, side by side,Our places fixed for life upon the chart.Two islands that the roaring seas divideAre not more far apart.

Christmas Eve I saw a stable, low and very bare, A little child in a manger. The oxen knew Him, had Him in their care, To men He was a stranger, The safety of the world was lying there, And the world’s danger.

We were young, we were merry, we were very, very wise, And the door stood open at our feast, When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes, And a man with his back to the East.

How often one talks not to hear what the other person has got to say, but to hear what one has got to say oneself!

The fruits of the tree of Knowledge are various; he must be strong indeed who can digest all of them.