Sorrow

“ On thy lonely journey farest,
That understandest not nor carest
For me and my sadness!
Woe indeed! thou dost not know
Man cometh into this world in sorrow
To spend in grief to-night, to-morrow
In sorrow the third day to go! ”

“ O Sorrow, thou sublime mystery by which a man's spirit is raised and his soul expanded! Sorrow, without which there would be no poetry, for poetry is nearly always made up of joy and hope in equal parts, with an equivalent amount of sorrow!
Sorrow, which leaves its trace for life; a furrow moistened by tears, whence Prayer springs, the mother of those three heavenly, noble daughters, whose names are Faith, Hope and Charity! The benediction of a poet is ever thine, O Sorrow! ”

“ It tells of future agony and woe.
Some mighty sorrow, vague and undefined,
But dark, and awful, waits for me, behind
That shadowy cloud. Something of woe and tears--
Of grief, and anguish, is the future years. ”

“ Sorrow is the first stage, of which the second and completed stage is transformation into joy. Every thundercloud has a rainbow lying in its depths when the sun smites upon it. Our purest and noblest joys are transformed sorrows. The sorrow of contrite hearts becomes the gladness of pardoned children; the sorrow of bereaved, empty hearts may become the gladness of hearts filled with God; and every grief that stoops upon our path may be, and will be, if we keep near that dear Lord, changed into its own opposite, and become the source of blessedness else unattainable. ”

“ But when the heart has been deeply and powerfully struck by some cruel blow of destiny, the intensity of suffering exceeds the bounds of sensibility and emotion.
Those who work hard seldom yield themselves entirely up to real or fancied sorrow. When grief sits down, folds its hands, and mournfully feeds upon its own tears, weaving the dim shadows that a little exertion might sweep away into oblivion, the strong spirit is shorn of its might, and sorrow becomes our master. ”

“ Surely, however broad the view we take of the universe, a real woe, a veritable experience of suffering, amidst this boundless benificence, reaching as deep as the heart's core, is this old and common sorrow;—the sorrow of woman for her babes, and of man for his helpmate, and of age for its prop, and of the son for the mother that bore him, and of the heart for the hearts that once beat in sympathy, and of the eyes that hide vacancies with tears. ”

“ That each sorrow has its purpose--
By the sorrowing oft unguessed,
But as sure as the Sun brings morning,
Whatever is--is best.
I know that each sinful action,
As sure as the night brings shade,
Is sometime, somewhere punished,
Tho' the hour be long delayed.
I know that the soul is aided
Sometimes by the heart's unrest,
And to grow means often to suffer--
But whatever is--is best. ”

“ We look out on the great, wide world of men,
And, smiling, lean toward a bright to-morrow,
Then backward shrink, with sudden keen regret,
To find that we are learning to forget:
Ah! then we face the saddest hour of sorrow. ”

“ At once to mark and sooth the grief
There flows the sorrow-starting tear.
There is indeed a grief that scorns
The channel of a watery eye,
But then it breaks the thread of life,
Or heats the brain to agony. ”

“ They had indeed their sorrows, true and deep, but still, more like children's sorrows than ours, whether bursting into open cry of pain, or hid with shuddering under the veil, still passing over the soul as clouds do over heaven, not sullying it, not mingling with it;—darkening it perhaps long or utterly, but still not becoming one with it, and for the most part passing away in dashing rain of tears, and leaving the man unchanged; in nowise affecting, as our sorrow does, the whole tone of his thought and imagination thenceforward. ”

“ Some people, instead of bringing with them clouds of glory, trail clouds of sorrow; they are born with “the gift of sorrow”; “sorrows” they proclaim “alone are real. The veiled grey angels of sorrow work out slowly the beautiful shapes. Sorrow is beauty, and the supreme blessedness.” You read it in their eyes, and in the tones of their voices. Emily had the gift of sorrow. It fascinated me, but it drove me to rebellion.
We followed the soft, smooth-bitten turf toad under the old beeches. The hillside fell away, dishevelled with thistles and coarse grass. ”

“ No, there was no feeling there !
From that gloomy trance of sorrow When you woke to pangs unknown;
How unwelcome was the morrow, For it rose on you alone.
Sunk in self-consuming anguish Can the poor heart always ache 1
No, the tortur'd nerve will languish, Or the strings of life must break.
O'er the yielding brow of sadness, One faint smile of comfort stole,
One soft pang of tender gladness, Exquisitely thrill'd your soul.
While the wounds of woe are healing, While the heart is all resign'd,
'Tis the solemn feast of feeling, Tis the sabbath of the mind. ”

“ For in the clear percipience of the Lord sorrow is ignorance and shameful.
“One thing only, monks, now as always I declare to you—sorrow and the uprooting of sorrow.”
For what man would wander in the mist of sorrow when he may walk glad and straight to the goal in the sunlight of wisdom. And sorrow understood is sorrow ended. ”

“ In their touching pathos we seem to hear the sob of natural sorrow for the loved and lost, “the fall of kisses on unanswering clay,” the throbbings of the human heart in the hour of its deepest emotion, when the parting pang unseals the founts of feeling in the soul. ”

“ When 'whelmed in deep sorrow, you find that it's dead,
And that all the atonement left here,
(With a heart, where a thorn hath been planted instead)
Is, to water its grave with a tear!
When remorse shall have lit the slow fire of regret,
And the pride of life's garden is flown,
And the seeds of despair have commingled and met
In the spot where the plant should have grown,—
How dreadful, on memory's tablet to view,
The sad record of happiness gone! ”

“ Follow Thee with holy hasting,
Led by Thy dear Hand
To the Blessed land.
Through despondence dread,
Still support our tread;
Though our heavy burdens bow us,
How to bear them bravely, show us!
Such adversity
Is but the path to Thee.
When our bosom's grief
Clamours for relief,
When we share another's sorrow,
May we Thy sweet patience borrow,
That to our Heavenly Father's Will
We may trust each issue still. ”

“ O'er which the winds, unwearied mourners, rave,
One, who strove darkly sorrow's sob to stay,
Upraised the body: thrice I bade him stay;
Bor still my wordless woe had much to say,
And still I bent and gazed, and gazing wept. ”

“ Those who come in sorrow, may that sorrow be doubled; in happiness, may that happiness be changed to misery; in hope, may they meet despair; in health, sickness; in the pride of life and strength, death! ”

“ There is but one pardonable grief—that for the departed. This pleasing grief is but a variety of comfort, the sighs are but a mournful mode of loving them.
There are sorrows too sacred to be babbled to the world, griefs which one would forbear to whisper even to a friend. Real sorrow is not clamorous. It seeks to shun every eye, and breathes in solitude and silence the sighs that come from the heart. ”

“ But Thou knowest that it is all but a shadow which a glance from Thee can dissipate. Hast not Thou Thyself been a man? It was sorrow that made Thee God; sorrow is an instrument of torture by which Thou hast mounted to the very throne of God, Thy Father, and it is sorrow that leads us to Thee with our crown of thorns to kneel before Thy mercy-seat; we touch Thy bleeding feet with our bloodstained hands, for Thou hast suffered martyrdom to be loved by the unfortunate. ”

“ A whole atmosphere of consecrated suffering seems to float round these spots sacred to sorrow, the sorrow that humbly appeals, as it best knows how, to the love, wide enough to embrace and comfort all desolate, and yearning, and heavy-laden souls. ”

“ My griefs sometimes wrap me about like cold confining walls, which have neither windows nor doors. It seems as though a fluid sorrow can congeal into a cold, hard temperament, and hold me in its icy embrace. ”

“ I gave you tears for drinking,
⁠And heart-sick sobs,
With brain too sick for thinking,
⁠And to the throbs
Of my sad heart I hushed you till I crushed you
Into rest for all your thorns.
Into my heart. Sorrow, too oft you came ”

“ In her bitter anguish passed,
O'er the blossoms white and lowly,
Was her sacred shadow cast;
And the agony of sorrow,
Falling like a purple pall.—
Unforgotten with the morrow—
Still doth linger over all. ”

“ Standing between thy poor tempted creatures and the worst sorrow that can befall them—a sorrow that softens, not like others, as death approaches, but is transformed, and stands like a giant at the bedside. ”

“ At every little sorrow my heart shrinks into itself, not for my own sake, but out of pity—I do not know whether anybody will understand what I mean—every sorrow is like a drop of ink that falls into a glass of water ”

“ Vague and far-off, and fixt as fate,
Which hide from sight that land unknown
Where, ever, like a carven stone
The setting sun doth stand and wait,
And men cry not: "Too late! too late!"
And sorrow turns to a golden gloom. ”

“ ON ANOTHER'S SORROW Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?
Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be! ”

“ When the clouds of sorrow gather over us, we see nothing beyond them, nor can imagine how they will be dispelled; yet a new day succeeded to the night, and sorrow is never long without a dawn of ease. ”

“ Taste all the sad vicissitudes of grief;
How many steep in tears their scanty bread;
Or, lost to reason, Sorrow's victims! rave:
How many know not where to lay their head;
While some are driven by anguish to the grave! ”

“ To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime.
O! that our night of woe might have remember'd
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits! ”

“ And when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? ”

“ And roll down bleared roads to each distance
Of past desolation and years;
Till they cover the place of each sorrow,
And leave you no Past and no morrow:
For what man is able to master
And stem the great Fountain of Tears?
But the floods of the tears meet and gather;
The sound of them all grows like thunder:
—O into what bosom, I wonder,
Is poured the whole sorrow of years?
For Eternity only seems keeping
Account of the great human weeping:
May God then, the Maker and Father—
May He find a place for the tears!
{170} LOVE AFTER DEATH. ”

“ Could I believe that grief for the dead, and not sorrow for the conduct of the living, moved her thus, I should be happy. Then I could offer consolation and sympathy; but now, if I saw her, what could I say? Pity, sorrow for her grief, would be but idle words, which she would spurn with contempt,—and she would be right. ”

“ But how does all this seem at the moment when one suddenly falls into the pit of sorrow, and when one's eyes are turned downward; when he who doeth all things well permits the utmost treachery of fortune, and when the one who can hear every cry seems deaf to one's most heartrending pleadings? ”

“ As for sorrow, it is turned into joy,—the very thing that caused tears becoming the spring of smiles. And death, the king of shadows, is shorn of its horrors and becomes the entrance chamber to introduce into the presence of the King of Light. ”

“ But there is one sorrow which will be forgiven thee, and for which there is recompense; it is sorrow for thy dead. For this sweet sorrow for thy lost ones is, in truth, but another form of consolation; when we long for them, this is but a sadder way of loving them still; and when we think of their departure we shed tears, as well as when we picture to ourselves our happy meeting with them again. And perhaps these tears differ not. ”

“ These two states of mind, both of them the natural operations of any deep faith, may co-exist and blend into one another, so as that the gladness is sobered, and chastened, and made manly and noble; and that the sorrow is like some thundercloud, all streaked with bars of sunshine, that pierce into its deepest depths. The joy lives in the midst of the sorrow; the sorrow springs from the same root as the gladness. ”

“ For it beareth the message: “Rise up on the morrow
And go on your ways toward the doubt and the strife;
Join hope to our hope and blend sorrow with sorrow,
And seek for men’s love in the short days of life.” ”

“ And he answered, "Is not sorrow a holy thing? Thou art the most sorrowful man in the whole world, for thou hast killed what was dearer to thee than life, and bitter is thy sorrow, and heavy is thy punishment." ”

“ When the sad earth, broken-hearted, Hath not even a tear to shed, And her very soul seems parted For her children lying dead, Send the streams with warmer pulses Through that frozen fount of fears, And the sorrow that convulses, Soothe and soften down to tears. ”