Lionel Johnson Quotes

Lionel Johnson offers a solemn, poetic voice that drifts through fate and fear, inviting readers who linger on dark dreams.

9 quotes

1. Alone he rides, alone, The fair and fatal king: Dark night is all his own, That strange and solemn thing.

2. Vanquished in life, his death By beauty made amends: The passing of his breath Won his defeated ends.

3. Because of thee, the land of dreams Becomes a gathering place of fears: Until tormented slumber seems One vehemence of useless tears.

4. Sombre and rich, the skies; Great glooms, and starry plains. Gently the night wind sighs; Else a vast silence reigns.

5. Yeats, you need ten years in the library, but I have need of ten years in the wilderness.

6. Yet, when the city sleeps; When all the cries are still: The stars and heavenly deeps Work out a perfect will.

7. “Come! our world is done: For all the witchery of the world is fled, And lost all wanton wisdom long since won.”

8. “While death and darkness girdle me I grope for immortality.”

9. “Mine is the sultry sunset when the skies Tremble with strange, intolerable thunder: And at the dead of an hushed night, these eyes Draw down the soaring oracles winged with wonder”