Heart's Desire

“ Now the only answer and echo that hearts desire is the love of the beloved heart. We all know that in our earthly life. Love is as much a hunger to be loved as the outgoing of my own affection. The two things are inseparable, and there is nothing that repays love but love. ”

“ It is the more delightsome when this moment of man-frenzy finds one in such a town as was this of Heart's Desire; where, indeed, a man could do precisely as he pleased; where it was not accounted wrong or ill-balanced to claim the whole street for a half moment or so of a cloudless morning, and so to ease one's self of the pressure of the joy of living. To own this little world, to live free of touch or taint of control or guidance, to be brother to the mountains, cousin of the free sky—to live in Heart's Desire and be a man—ah! ”

“ I never watch the scattered fire Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train, But all my heart is one desire, And all in vain: For I am bound with fleshly bands, Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope; I strain my heart, I stretch my hands, And catch at hope. ”

“ No lover, longing for his loves, complaineth of desire, But with a doubled stress of woe my heart is overborne.
Of passion I complain to one who hath no ruth on me. How soul and body by desire are, one from other, torn!”
Then her eyes brimmed over with tears, and she wrote these verses also:
“Love-longing, the day of our parting, my body with mourning smote, And severance from my eyelids hath made sleep far remote. ”

“ Heart's Desire! It was well named, indeed; fit capital for the malcontents who sought oblivion, dreaming, long as they might, that Life can be left aside when one grows weary of it; dreaming—ah! deep, foolish, golden dream—that somewhere there is on earth an Eden with no Eve and without a flaming sword!
The town all lay along one deliberate, crooked street, because the arroyo along which it straggled was crooked. ”

“ HOW delicate a passion in the heart
Is this, conceived beneath the roughest form!
Yet, while the sentiment of love is warm,
We feel the force of sorrow, should we part.
Thus would it seem to me, whene’er thou art
Occasionally ruffled by the storm
Of my desire, swiftly to inform
Thy spirit of the love which I impart.
Turn not thy head, fair one, away from me;
Nor at my words condemn the soul’s desire,
That drives from man all thought of other things.
Torn by my passion, I would willingly
Cast all earth’s treasures to th’ eternal fire,
If I might once fly heavenward on thy wings! ”

“ Most amiable Heart, which hast loved us with an eternal love! supply what is wanting in my love, and receive my desire, at least of loving thee with all the ardor and sincerity thou so justly meritest. But remember, O adorable Heart! that thou hast not disclosed thyself to us only as an object of our adorations; thou desirest much more to engage our love, and to become the ground and tender motive of our tender confidence. For this end thou wert pierced through with a lance on the cross; and for the same purpose thou, remainest a dally victim of thy own love on our altars. ”

“ The heart is the most credulous of all fanatics, and its ruling passion the most enduring of all superstitions. Oh! what can tear from us, to the last, the hope, the desire, the yearning for some bosom which, while it mirrors our own, parts not with the reflection! ”

“ A heart throbbing steadily and strong, veins full of rich, pure blood, a warm touch, an eager wish to be affectionate, and self lost in the desire to love—this is the expression of the folds. Full of the energy of exceptional vitality, she gladly gives that energy for the delight of the little one. ”

“ And now he knows that these things are dreams indeed, illusions of the sense, for there is but one thing true in the life of men, and that is Love; there is but one thing perfect, the beauty which is Love’s robe; there is but one thing which all men seek and are born to find at last, the heart of the Golden Helen, the World’s Desire, that is peace and joy and rest. ”

“ I write with a heart devoted to thee and the thought of thee And an eyelid, wounded for weeping tears of the blood of me.
And a body that love and affliction and passion and long desire Have clad with the garment of leanness and wasted utterly.
I plain me to thee of passion, for sore hath it baffled me Nor is there a corner left me where patience yet may be.
Wherefore, have mercy, I prithee, show favour unto me, For my heart, my heart is breaking for love and agony.
The cure of hearts is union with the beloved and whom his love maltreateth, God is his physician. ”

“ And so with the heart from which a low desire in the guise of an alluring temptation has snatched the flower of innocence. That heart will fade into hopeless loss unless a greater love than yours or mine intervenes to save. ”

“ What next I bring shall please thee, be assured, Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self, Thy wish exactly to thy heart's desire. ”

“ Now the Wanderer wavered no more, but put out his arms to gather her to his heart. Now the Red Star was hidden on his breast, now the red drops dripped from the Star upon his mail, and the face of her who is the World’s Desire grew soft in the shadow of his helm, while her eyes were melted to tears beneath his kiss. The Gods send all lovers like joy! ”

“ Desire, the story of the struggle between the divine and mortal forces and the powers of the Sidhe to claim the soul of the young wife and of the triumph of the fairies, by which the girl’s body falls lifeless by the hearth while her spirit speeds away to live forever in the land “where nobody gets old or sorry or poor,” has a poignant pathos, a wild, dreamy beauty that touches the heart. ”

“ Heart and soul are fixed upon the desire of the Beloved: this at least is, for if not, heart and soul are nought. Fate is that which comes to the brink without the heart’s blood; if not, all thy striving after the Garden of Paradise is nought. ”

“ From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals of Five and Six Parts, 1600.
Take here my heart, I give it thee for ever!
No better pledge can love to love deliver.
Fear not, my dear, it will not fly away,
[Pg 117] For hope and love command my heart to stay.
But if thou doubt, desire will make it range:
Love but my heart, my heart will never change. ”

“ Sensibility and refinement of the heart lend to the passion of love the form of a fervent and etherialized feeling which finds its gratification in the communings of heart with heart; while, in grosser natures, it degenerates into the yearnings of desire or perhaps into a blind obedience to the mystic power of female loveliness; but the strength of the passion can be equally great in either case. ”

“ An artist gives himself full-heartedly to the emotions. Keen and poignant afterward, is the battle to straighten them out, to comb them down. The mind holds the truth about it all, the spirit sings all around, but the heart holds fast to its agonising play of passion settings.
Desire is like an old King, sitting in the midst of his dogs, a King by the fire in his tower. The Shining Heir is born, but the old King is slow to die. ”

“ Why, you see, God will give her her heart's desire, because He has said so. 'Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desire of thine heart.' She 'delights' in Him, she just lives with Him. And if words won't do, you know what children must expect ”

“ On one side were love and pleasure—on the other a broken oath, and the loss for ever of the Heart’s Desire. For to love another woman, as he had been warned, was to lose Helen. But again, if he scorned the Queen—nay, for all his hardihood he dared not tell her that she was not the woman of his vision, the woman he came to seek. Yet even now his cold courage and his cunning did not fail him.
“Lady,” he said, “we both have dreamed. But if thou didst dream thou wert my love, thou didst wake to find thyself the wife of Pharaoh. And Pharaoh is my host and hath my oath.” ”

“ She sat looking out over the street below, instinctively following Dan Anderson's gaze. Voices came to them, clamorous, strident, coarse. There lay revealed all that was crude, all that was savage, all that was unlovable and impossible of Heart's Desire. It had been a dream, but it was a man's dream in which he had lived. For a woman—for her—for this sweet girl of a gentler world, that dream could be nothing else than hideous. "Be just! Be fair!" Dan Anderson's soul demanded of him; and as best he saw justice and fairness to the woman he loved he answered for himself. ”

“ There were two white boulders beside which the trickle of water rippled. Obeying him, she seated herself. Presently Dan Anderson settled himself upon the other, and for a time they sat in silence. The purple shadows had long ago deepened into half darkness, and as they looked up above the long, slow curve of old Carrizo, there rose the burnished silver of the wondrous moon of Heart's Desire. The bare and barren valley was softened and glorified into a strange, half-ghostly beauty. The earth has few scenes more beautiful than Heart's Desire at moonlight. ”

“ It was quite impossible, he found, to ask to be delivered from temptation when your heart’s desire was to be tempted unto seventy times seven. ”

“ One might have heard falling, faint and far off, the shattered crystals of the walls that had long hedged sacredly about the valley of Heart's Desire. One might have heard, sweeping the soft and silken curtains of its oblivion, the rough rush of a disturbing wind!
Dan Anderson's back was in shame turned to me as he gazed down the valley. "Friend," said he, "I swore never to think of her once more. Of course, the old ways had to end. Her people wouldn't have it. She told me she could not be happy with a dreamer; that it was no time for dreamers; that the world was run by workers. ”

“ There was not a leaf in all that land to give a rustle, nor any water which might afford a ripple. It was a world silent, finished, past and beyond life and its frettings, with nothing to trouble, and with nothing which bade one think of any world gone by. Here was no place for memories or dreams. The rush of another world might go on. Folk might live and love, grieve and joy, and sorrow and die, and it mattered nothing. These things came not to Heart's Desire.
Presently Dan Anderson was guilty of a thing revolutionary, horrible! ”

“ The CHILD ceases strewing the primroses, and kneels upon the settle beside MAIRE and puts her arms about her neck.
Cry daughter to the Angels and the Saints.
THE CHILD.
You shall go with me, newly-married bride,
And gaze upon a merrier multitude:
White-armed Nuala and Ardroe the Wise,
Feacra of the hurtling foam, and him
Who is the ruler of the western host,
Finvarra, and their Land of Heart's Desire,
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song.
I kiss you and the world begins to fade.
FATHER HART.
Daughter, I call you unto home and love! ”

“ Alas! it was not happiness, but misery that came; for Constance Ellsworth now got taste of those bitter waters of life which are withheld from none. There was a sound of a distant shout—the chance call of some drunken reveller—far down the street, a tawdry, unimportant incident, but enough to break a spell, to destroy an illusion, to awaken a conscience for a man, if that phrase be just. Dan Anderson turned to look down the long street of Heart's Desire. ”

“ There are two problems in life, and only two: food and love. Civilization offers us no more, nor indeed does barbarism; for civilization and barbarism are not far apart. The great metropolis which sent its emissaries out to the little mountain hamlet never held within its teeming confines any greater or graver questions than those which were now to come before the town meeting of Heart's Desire.
Down at the stone hotel of Uncle Jim Brothers the tables had been cleared away to make room for this event, the first of its kind ever known in that valley. ”

“ You go by buckboard?"
Constance nodded. "I like it," said she. "I am sure we shall enjoy the ride up to Heart's Desire."
"Heart's Desire?" repeated the diva, with an odd smile.
Constance saw the smile and challenged it. "Yes," she replied briefly, "I was there once before."
"What is it like?" asked Donatelli.
"Like nothing in the world—yet it's just a little valley shut in by the mountains."
"A man was here from Heart's Desire last night," began Donatelli. "You know, I am a singer. He had heard in some way. My faith! ”

“ The very shoulders under the heavy laces caught a plaintive droop, learned in no role of Marguerite in any land. The red rose at her hair—the rose got from some mysterious source—half trembled. Fear, a great fear—the first stage fright known in years—swept over Alice Strowbridge, late artist, and now woman. There sat upon her soul a sense of unpreparedness for this new Public, this lone man from a mysterious land called Heart's Desire—a place where men, actual men, earnest men, were living, vaguely yearning for that which was not theirs. ”

“ I could love no other woman after seeing you, and this you should know with no proof but my word. If I have drawn apart from you, 'twas through no fault of mine, and this I pray you to believe. If I have not acted to my own heart the full part of a man, 'tis for that reason I have hidden away ”

“ Says Lancelot, 'Fair queen, thou didst me a injury onct; but couldst thou but come and stand at my bedside, I hadst new zeal in life,' says he."
"Meanin' he'd get well?" asked Curly. "That's the same as Dan Anderson! This feller's a peach!"
"Shut up!" admonished Tom Osby. "Go on, Willie."
"It's always that-a-way," said Willie. Tears stood in his eyes. He looked vaguely out over the blue hills which hedged in the enchanted valley of Heart's Desire. "It's always that-a-way," he repeated. "Somehow, somewhere, there's always a beautiful queen, for every fellow, just over the mountains. ”

“ Barkley declared that there must be a fundamental revolution as to the old ideas of Heart's Desire. There had been no courts. There had been no government, no society. It was time that the old days of the mining camp and cow town were done, time that miner's law and no law at all should give way to the laws of the Territory, to the laws of the United States government, and to the greater law of industrial progress. ”