The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.
James JoyceRead
Gentle lady, do not sing Sad songs about the end of love; Lay aside sadness and sing How love that passes is enough. Sing about the long deep sleep Of lovers that are dead, and how In the grave all love shall sleep: Love is aweary now.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote encourages a focus on the beauty of love rather than its loss, suggesting that love endures even after separation.
In this quote, James Joyce conveys a poignant reflection on love and loss. He implores the listener not to dwell on sad songs that lament the end of love but to find comfort in the idea that love itself is sufficient, even as it fades. He suggests that, although love may seem burdensome in its absence, it ultimately resides peacefully in memory, transcending life and death. This duality reflects how love continues to exist in a different form, urging a shift from sadness to acceptance and celebration of love's existence.
Themes
LoveLossMemoryAcceptanceBeauty
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared during a memorial service to honor lost loved ones.
More from James Joyce
All quotes →I think a child should be allowed to take his father's or mother's name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.
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If he had smiled why would he have smiled? To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.
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I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
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The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside.
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She respected her husband in the same way as she respected the General Post Office, as something large, secure and fixed: and though she knew the small number of his talents she appreciated his abstract value as a male.
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