Hug

“ But please hug and kiss me, everyone, and don't mind my dress. ”

“ That sympathy which grafts, by approach, grown up people in the first quarter of an hour, often draws children also to each other. Our couple flew into each other's arms and hugged each other over forty times a day. ”

“ Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes, Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise, Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above All modulation of the deep-bowered dove, Is like a hand laid softly on the soul; Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:— What word can answer to thy word,—what gaze To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays? What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove, O lovely and beloved, O my love? ”

“ Dearest, I lay my heart down on yours and cry: and having worn myself out with it and ended, I kiss your lips and bless God that I have known you.
I have not said—I never could say it—"Let the day perish wherein Love was born!" I forget nothing of you: you are clear to me,—all but one thing: why we have become as we are now, one whole, parted and sent different ways. And yet so near! On my most sleepless nights my pillow is yours: I wet your face with my tears and cry, "Sleep well."
To-night also, Beloved, sleep well! Night and morning I make you my prayer. ”

“ I would sob like a child, I would tear from my breast not words, but my very heart and vitals, to tell you that I love you;—all would be useless, all!—And yet you have nothing in your heart but what is tender and merciful. You are radiant with the most beautiful mildness; you are wholly sweet, good, pitiful, and charming. ”

“ Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
Where did you get this pretty ear?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.
Where did you get those arms and hands?
Love made itself into hooks and bands. ”

“ Straight speech and a straight road are always good things, though they don’t often run between the hearts of an old man and a young maid—the worse for the maid, maybe. But here’s my last word on it. If ever your heart, and your pride, and your love and life are beaten down into the dust, they can be raised up and healed by a kiss, given and taken, on the lips. ”

“ Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile;
⁠Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over;
⁠Love has no habitation but the heart.
Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile,
⁠Cling, and are borne into the night apart.
⁠The laugh dies with the lips, 'Love' with the lover. ”

“ To have cried in childhood as I cried then, incessantly and for months, sometimes for the greater part of the day under a bed, that none of these mocking young creatures might see me and laugh at me; to have stood so intolerably alone among so many, without a hand to dry my eyes, a kiss to comfort me, a soft breast against which I could rest my tired little head and sob out my tale of sorrow,—this is to start permanently maimed for the battle of life. ”

“ Are we face to face with something primitive, or something conventional and derivative? Is it as natural to kiss when we are transported with love as it is to smile when we are mirthful, or weep when we are sad? ”

“ The hand open? ay, and the heart too; for there seems to be breathed around a spirit that softens the hard crust, so that it is open to any emotion, be it such as begets mirth or tears. Who can say what it is?—that loving, happy exhilaration that comes over us, and makes a man even kiss his mother-in-law roundly. ”

“ A vision of my youth comes over me—a happy boyhood—a tree-embowered home, babbling brooks, fertile lawns—a father's blessing—a mother's kiss that was both joy and blessing—a brother's brave and tender friendship—and first love, that dearest, sweetest, holiest charm of all. ”

“ The gentle pressure of the hand, one kiss—
A kiss not given yet not resisted—tells
A tale of love that words are poor to tell.
And when she goes how lonely seems her way
Through groves, through fields, through busy haunts of men ”

“ I will see you with joy, part from you with regret, grieve in your griefs, enter with zeal into your concerns, interest myself in your honour and welfare, and endeavour, with all my little power, to contribute to your comfort and satisfaction.—Is your heart so differently constituted from every other human heart, that an affection, thus ardent and sincere, excites in it no grateful, and soothing, emotions? ”

“ At folding-time, that crowd, all mother-warm,
They crowd, they cling, they wreathe;—
And thick as sparkles of the thronging stars,
Their kisses swarm.
O Rose of Being at whose heart I breathe.
Fold over, hold me fast
In the dim Eden of a blinding kiss.
And lightning heart's desire, be still at last.
Heart can no more,—
Life can no more
Than this. ”

“ By and by the good-by kiss is forgotten when he leaves her, the salute of greeting omitted when he returns, and each heart grows harder and harder, bitterer and bitterer, until at last he thinks of her but to censure and condemn, she of him but to dislike and fear. ”

“ And thy sigh and thy blush were as sweet as those
Of thy sister, the rosebud there.
I have been like that bird of the eastern tale
Which has not a rest in the sky;
But the thought of that blush came in peace to my heart,
Like a pledge for the truth of that sigh. ”

“ Yet 'gan his lips to move;
But life and deeds were in her thought,
And he would sing of love.
So sang they till their eyes did meet,
And faded fear and shame;
More bold he grew, and she more sweet,
Until they sang the same.
Until, say they who know the thing,
Their very lips did kiss,
And Sorrow laid abed with Spring
Begat an earthly bliss.
MEETING IN WINTER
Winter in the world it is,
Round about the unhoped kiss
Whose dream I long have sorrowed o'er;
Round about the longing sore,
That the touch of thee shall turn
Into joy too deep to burn. ”

“ One day when she was in church and the kiss of peace was to be imparted, she saw close beside her a woman in splendid apparel, and taking the latter to be a lady of rank, she gave her the kiss of peace. ”

“ God have mercy on the boy who learns to sob early! Condemn it as sentiment, if you will; talk as you will of the fearlessness, and strength of the boy’s heart—yet there belong to many, tenderly strung chords of affection which give forth low and gentle music that consoles and ripens the ear for all the harmonies of life. ”

“ The wide horizon gives his imagination room to grow in, untrammelled. That background of mystery, without which life is a poor mechanical arrangement, is shaped and colored, so far as it can have outline, or any hue but shadow, on a vast canvas, the contemplation of which enlarges and enriches the sphere of consciousness. The mighty ocean is not too huge to symbolize the aspirations and ambitions of the yet untried soul of the adolescent. ”

“ And may she know no Grief but in the name.
May his and her Pleasure and Love be so
Involv'd and growing, that we may not know
Who most Affection or most Peace engrost;
Whose Love is strongest, or whose Bliss is most. ”

“ A sense of unspoken, unspeakable happiness flowed into the boy’s warm heart, and if at the same moment his eyes were suffused with tears, they were the tears that always spring up when the fountain of the heart is stirred by any strong emotion to its inmost depths—the tears that come even in laughter to show that our very pleasures have their own alloy. ”

“ The wooing smile, as on thy aching breast
Some wretch reclines, who feeling ne'er possess'd;
Thy poor heart bursting with the stifled tear!
Oh, GOD OF MERCY! bid her woes subside,
And be to her a friend, who hath no friend beside. ”

“ In Thy Heart I Shall Find Peace. Thee, Thee alone, O Heart of my God, will I love! Heart most pure, Heart most holy, never tiring of my insults, ever forgiving and forgetting, and, if I do but love Thee sincerely, admitting me as a chosen friend to Thy sweet company. “Come unto Me, all you that labor, and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.” Seek not elsewhere for relief in sorrow: come to the Heart of One Who loves you. ”

“ Ye are given to us as faithful companions 'mid life's joy and sternness! At the child's first griefs on its faithful mother's breast, ye already penetrate the little heart, and turn the grief to gladness. ”

“ Sterne says, that is equal to a kiss—yet I would rather give you the kiss into the bargain, glowing with gratitude to Heaven, and affection to you. I like the word affection, because it signifies something habitual; and we are soon to meet, to try whether we have mind enough to keep our hearts warm. ”

“ Surely if there be a guardian spirit, which deigns to flit through this wayward world, to cheer the stricken breast, and purify feelings, whose every chord vibrates to the touch of woe; surely such presides, and throws a sunny halo, on the group, that blood has united--on which family love has shed its genial influence--and of which, each member, albeit bowed down by sympathetic grief, attempts to lift his drooping head, and to others open some source of comfort, which to the kind speaker, is inefficient and valueless indeed! ”

“ With tin whistles, mouth-organs, any noise,
⁠They pipe the way to glory and the grave;
Foolish and young, the gay and golden boys
⁠Love cannot save.
High heart! High courage! The poor girls they kissed
⁠Run with them: they shall kiss no more, alas! ”

“ If the brave and lovely men and women could come back to the old home-nest, all outgrown,—and he smiled sadly to himself,—just to clasp each other's hands, and glance into each other's eyes, to speak some word of comfort and blessing, to smooth the path of the dear heart yonder, who had given herself for them without stint or grudging, a holier sacrifice than even a mother's love. ”

“ One by one the objects of our affection depart from us. But our affections remain, and like vines stretch forth their broken, wounded tendrils for support. The bleeding heart needs a balm to heal it; and there is none but the love of its kind,--none but the affection of a human heart! ”

“ Within its magic wreath I'd place
Hearts'-ease and every lovely flower;
To win thee by their matchless grace,
And cheer and bless the lonely hour.
When at the world's unkind return
Of all thy worth, and all thy care,
Thou may'st in spite of manhood turn,
And shed the sad, the bitter, tear.
Then, midst this holy grief of thine,
The thought of some true friend may bless,
And cheer the gloom like angel's smile,
Or sunbeam in a wilderness. ”

“ Standing in the presence of a bereaved friend, shallow souls can chatter idle phrases, but deep, healing, tender sympathy is expressed in the silence of a handclasp and unspoken word. Looking into the deep, expressive eyes of one whom we love, our lips are silent and only the tear-filled eye tells of the song the soul is singing. ”

“ They bring comfort, but also they bring tears into the eyes and pain into the heart. The message of a tender soul—what does it bring but ineffable comfort to the heart? You do not feel that it is a message, you do not feel it to be a divinely beautiful thing. ”

“ And glorious peace upon these friends of mine!
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[Pg 9]
Dear Lord, if some be rich, bid Thou them bear
Some joy this day to Sorrow and to Care.
If some be glad with living, bid them go
Afar or near and minister to Woe.
Bring love to every heart and let it fill
The cup of joy for each, and overspill,
And let the light of sympathy so shine
That none shall weep of all these friends of mine. ”

“ The cry of the hurt heart for solitude, seems to me the call of the heart of God—changed by the echo of the tiny hollows of the heart of his creature—“Come out from among them: come to me, and I will give you rest!” He alone can give us the repose of love, the peace after which our nature yearns. ”

“ As the alarmed heart leaps in the breast,
And knows and names and greets its godlike guest—
Thus doth Love speak.
How does Love speak?
In the proud spirit suddenly grown meek—
The haughty heart grown humble; in the tender
And unnamed light that floods the world with splendor;
In the resemblance which the fond eyes trace
In all fair things to one beloved face;
In the shy touch of hands that thrill and tremble ”

“ Like clouds, are lifted by Thy grace;
Take me in Love’s eternity.
And hold me in Thy firm embrace !
Human love is love and grief:
Love the plant and grief the flower;
In Thy heart I find relief.
Where Love and Joy grow in one bower. ”

“ He sank on his knees at her feet and kissed her hands, now trembling with excitement.
"Again!" he exclaimed.
"It is as true as God!" said she. "And he is doing well!"
He took her in his arms passionately, pouring out the thankfulness of his soul in kisses and loving caresses, sobbing like a child. They mingled their tears,—the blessed tears of joy and sympathy! ”

“ I ask, "Holds earth or sin, or woe?"
My heart replies, "I do not know."
Nay! all we know, or feel, my heart,
Today is joy undimmed, complete;
In tears or pain we have no part;
The act of breathing is so sweet,
We care no higher joy to name. ”

“ Here is the way to true relationships held gently open, through which you walk together, leaving the body thankfully behind and resting in the Everlasting Arms. Love's arms are open to receive you, and give you peace forever. ”

“ Come to this work, with a heart, with a heart lifted up, as well as a hand, as high as a hand; "Let us lift up our hearts to our hands;" let the ardency of our affection raise up our spirit to meet the Lord, to whom we adjoin ourselves for ever. ”