Ernest Dowson Quotes

#1. I was not sorrowful, but only tired
Of everything that ever I desired.

Ernest Dowson

#2. Ah, God, that sweet things should decline,
And fires fade out which were not cold,"
-from "Jadis

Ernest Dowson

#3. I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind; But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:

Ernest Dowson

#4. To hell with sense! We're all crazy. What do we want with sense?

Ernest Dowson

#5. Say, doth she weep for very wantonness?
Or is it that she dimly doth foresee
Across her youth the joys grow less and less
The burden of the days that are to be:
Autumn and withered leaves and vanity,
And winter bringing end in barrenness."
-from "My Lady April

Ernest Dowson

#6. I cried for madder music and for stronger wine ...

Ernest Dowson

#7. Pale amber sunlight falls across The reddening October trees ... Are we not better and at home In dreamful Autumn, we who deem No harvest joy is worth a dream? A little while and night shall come, A little while, then, let us dream ...

Ernest Dowson

#8. You ask my love completest,
As strong next year as now,
The devil take you, sweetest,
Ere I make aught such vow.
Life is a masque that changes,
A fig for constancy!
No love at all were better,
Than love which is not free.

Ernest Dowson

#9. They are not long, the weeping and the laughter. Love and desire and hate; I think they have no portion in us after We pass the gate.

Ernest Dowson

#10. I understand that absinthe makes the tart grow fonder.

Ernest Dowson

#11. Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild;
But there, beside the altar, there, is rest.
-from Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration

Ernest Dowson

#12. Ah, Lalage! while life is ours,
Hoard not thy beauty rose and white,
But pluck the pretty fleeing flowers
That deck our little path of light:
For all too soon we twain shall tread
The bitter pastures of the dead:
Estranged, sad spectres of the night.

Ernest Dowson

#13. And I was desolate and sick of an old passion.

Ernest Dowson

#14. They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for awhile, then closes
Within a dream.

Ernest Dowson