John B. Tabb Quotes

#1. Why should I stay? Nor seed nor fruit have I,But, sprung at once to beauty's perfect round,Nor loss nor gain nor change in me is found,-A life-complete in death-complete to die.

John B. Tabb

#2. Make me, dear Lord, polite and kind,
To everyone, I pray.
And may I ask you how you find
Yourself, dear Lord, today?

John B. Tabb

#3. Hush! With sudden gush As from a fountain sings in yonder bush The Hermit Thrush.

John B. Tabb

#4. A flash of harmless lightning,
A mist of rainbow dyes.
The burnished sunbeams brightening
From flower to flower he flies;
While wakes the nodding blossom
But just too late to see
What lip hath touched her bosom
And drained her rosary.

John B. Tabb

#5. Alas! dear Joy, the merriest, is dead. But I have wed Peace ; and our babe, a boy, New-born, is Joy.

John B. Tabb

#6. In every seed to breathe a flower, In every drop of dew To reverence a cloister star Within the distant blue; To wait the promise of the how, Despite the cloud between, Is Faith-the fervid evidence Of loneliness unseen.

John B. Tabb

#7. Out of the dusk a shadow, Then a spark; Out of the cloud a silence, Then a lark; Out of the heart a rapture, Then a pain; Out of the dead, cold ashes, Life again.

John B. Tabb

#8. And pray, who are you?"
Said the Violet blue
To the Bee, with surprise,
At his wonderful size,
In her eyeglass of dew.
"I, madam," quoth he,
"Am a publican Bee,
Collecting the tax
Of honey and wax.
Have you nothing for me?

John B. Tabb

#9. Are ye the ghosts of fallen leaves,
O flakes of snow,
For which, through naked trees, the winds
A-mourning go?

John B. Tabb