I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies,_x000D_ _x000D_ In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies.
Sidney LanierRead
Let my name perish, -- the poetry is good poetry and the music is good music,_x000D_ and beauty dieth not, and the heart that needs it will find it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of art and music transcends individual identity and endures through the appreciation of those who seek beauty.
In this quote, Sidney Lanier expresses the idea that personal recognition or fame pales in comparison to the value of art and music. He suggests that true beauty and the emotions it evokes are eternal, and those with a genuine appreciation for it will always discover and cherish it, regardless of the creator's name or legacy.
Themes
ArtMusicBeautyLegacyAppreciation
In practice
Example use cases
During an art exhibition, I shared this quote to emphasize the timelessness of creativity.
More from Sidney Lanier
All quotes βMusic is love searching for a word.
Sidney LanierRead
Chime out, thou little song of Spring,_x000D_ _x000D_ Float in the blue skies ravishing._x000D_ _x000D_ Thy song-of-life a joy doth bring_x000D_ _x000D_ That's sweet, albeit fleeting._x000D_ _x000D_ Float on the Spring-winds e'en to my home:_x000D_ _x000D_ And when thou to a rose shalt come_x000D_ _x000D_ That hath begun to show her bloom,_x000D_ _x000D_ Say, I send her greeting!
Sidney LanierRead
When I hear music, it seems to me that all the sins of my life pass slowly by me with veiled faces, lay their hands on my head, and say softly, "My child."
Sidney LanierRead
Music is love in search of a word.
Sidney LanierRead
As the woodpecker taps in a spiral quest_x000D_ _x000D_ From the root to the top of the tree,_x000D_ _x000D_ Then flies to another tree,_x000D_ _x000D_ So have I bored into life to find what lay therein,_x000D_ _x000D_ And now it is time to die,_x000D_ _x000D_ And I will fly to another tree.
Sidney LanierRead
Similar quotes
The meaning of song goes deep. Who in logical words can explain the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for a moment gaze into that!
Thomas CarlyleRead
It was - I'm very didactic in my lyrics, but I've always been drawn to mock my own emotions, and so I write this very lyric-heavy stuff, which suits theater and comedy much more than it suits pop.
Tim MinchinRead
It helps me to learn things in different languages, even if it's just phonetically, and to make myself vulnerable to other audiences by trying to reflect back to them the genius of their own cultures, and to do that, oftentimes, in new jazz settings, new arrangements. It's a way to show respect.
Kurt EllingRead
The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes, and before I could read them for myself, I had come to love just the words of them, the words alone.
Dylan ThomasRead
Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes.
Blaise CendrarsRead
Poetry can't give us the laws and institutions and representatives, the antidotes we need: only public activism by massive numbers of citizens can do that.
Adrienne RichRead