If there is to be a war between England and the United States, tis impossible for us to pretend sympathy with the former. We shall have allies, not enemies, on the banks of the Columbia, and distant and desolate as are those tracts beyond the Rocky Mountains, even there may arise an opportunity for demanding and regaining our place among the nations.
john mitchelNone are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possessed A thought, and claims the homage of a tear.
RochdaleSomewhere—in desolate wind-swept space—In Twilight-land—in No-man’s land—Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, And bade each other stand. “And who are you?” cried one, agape, Shuddering in the gloaming light. “I know not, ” said the second Shape, “I only died last night.”
thomas bailey aldrichThe sea, unmated creature, tired and lone,Makes on its desolate sands eternal moan.
frederick William faberA vacant mind invites dangerous inmates, as a deserted mansion tempts wandering outcasts to enter and take up their abode in its desolate apartments.
nicholas hilliardThe while He sits whose name is Love,And waits, as Noah did, for the dove,To wit if she would fly to him.He waits for us, while, houseless things,We beat about with bruised wingsOn the dark floods and water-springs,The ruined world, the desolate sea;With open windows from the primeAll night, all day, He waits sublime,Until the fulness of the timeDecreed from His eternity.
jean ingelowTo Him let us but cleave in all ouv strife; and the Tempte1 will flee; the wilderness will be desolate no more; angels will come and minister unto us; and when we pass from them to the ministry of life, be it to the glory of a transfiguration, the sorrows of a Gethsemane, or the sacrifice of the cross, the tran- quilizing peace of God will never be far from us.
james martineauNo one is so accursed by fate, No one so utterly desolate, But some heart, though unknown, Responds unto his own.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowMy God, whose son, as on this night, took on Him the form of man, and for man vouchsafed to suffer and bleed, controls thy hand, and without His behest, thou canst not strike a stroke. My God is sinless, eternal, all-wise, and in Him is my trust, and though stripped and crushed by thee, -though naked, desolate, void of resource- I do not despair:where the lance of Guthrum now wet with my blood, I should not despair. I watch, I toil, I hope, I pray: Jehovah, in His own time, will aid.
charlotte brontëI leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-gray, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires.
thomas hardyThere exists no more repulsive and desolate creature in the world than the man who has evaded his genius and who now looks furtively to left and right, behind him and all about him. ... He is wholly exterior, without kernel, a tattered, painted bag of clothes.
friedrich nietzscheSpirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom, why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope?
Percy Bysshe ShelleyThe lonely sunsets flare forlorn Down valleys dreadly desolate; The lonely mountains soar in scorn As still as death, as stern as fate.
robert serviceHe that has no present Christ has a future, dark, chaotic, heaving with its destructive ocean; and over it there goes forever black-pinioned, winging its solitary and hopeless flight, the raven of his anxious thoughts, and finds no place to rest, and comes back again to the desolate ark with its foreboding croak of evil in the present and evil in the future.
Sainte Jeanne went harvesting in France, But ah! what found she there? The little streams were running red, And the torn fields were bare; And all about the ruined towers Where once her king was crowned, The hurtling ploughs of war and death Had scored the desolate ground.
Marion Couthoy SmithNo soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.
The night-wind blew cold on my desolate heart But colder those wild words of doom, “Ye must part.”
desolate and dreary as the little town was in the world of today, it was infinitely more liveable than the same town of nearly two centuries before. There had been much progress in how to do things. It was regrettable that there was less progress in knowledge of things worth doing.
murray leinster