Henry Van Dyke Quotes

Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing; To his music, plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

Every crag and gnarled tree and lonely valley has its own strange and graceful legend attached to it.

I couldn't resist painting Orpheus and Charon on the River Styx. There was something strangely intriguing about seeing Orpheus playing his lyre as he is being shuttled across the river.

Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?

Shepherd. It's a very beautiful word. It represents peace. And it meant a lot to me because...I come from a life with shepherds and mountains and all that stuff.

Yet half the beast is the great god Pan, To laugh, as he sits by the river, Making a poet out of a man. The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain-- For the reed that grows never more again As a reed with the reeds of the river.

Carols of gladness ring from every tree.

The great god Pan is dead.

I want to be magic. I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. I want to be a friend of elves and live in a tree. Or under a hill. I want to marry a moonbeam and hear the stars sing. I don't want to pretend at magic anymore. I want to be magic.

From Helicon's harmonious springs A thousand rills their mazy progress take.

Aphrodite,” [Annabeth] said. “Venus?” Hazel asked in amazement. “Mom,” Piper said with no enthusiasm. “Girls!” The goddess spread her arms like she wanted a group hug. The three demigods did not oblige. Hazel backed into a palmetto tree.

remember the golden apple-trees; O, do not pity them, as you watch them drop one by one, for they fall exhausted, numb, blind but in certain ecstasy, for theirs is the hunger for Paradise.

They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical elements. I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by a nymph.

As the stars looked to me when I was a shepherd in Assyria, they look to me now as a New-Englander.

As I watched the pulsing fire among the trees and heard the beat of the drum merge and tremble with the voices, forming an intricate pattern of sound, I knew that someday I would have to return or be haunted forever by the beauty and mystery that is Africa.

The pinecone is a fearsome tool of destruction! -Bacchus

I walk out into a nature such as the old prophets and poets Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may name it America, but it is not America. Neither Americus Vespucius, nor Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer account of it in Mythology than in any history of America so called that I have seen.

Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan.

Wilderness. The word itself is music.

Thalia blushed. "Hi, Lord Apollo." Zeus's girl, yes? Makes you my half sister. Used to be a tree, didn't you? Glad you're back. I hate it when pretty girls turn into trees. Man, I remember one time—

Everyone goes to the forest; some go for a walk to be inspired, and others go to cut down the trees.

Love shook my heart/ Like the wind on the mountain/ Troubling the oak-trees

Trees're always a relief, after people.

The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled.