To him, who still would gaze upon the glory of the summer sun, there comes, when that sun will from him part, a sullen hopelessness of heart.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the deep emotional pain experienced when one has to part from something beautiful and uplifting.
Edgar Allan Poe's quote captures the melancholy that arises when a person must bid farewell to the joys and warmth provided by the summer sun, symbolizing happiness or beautiful moments in life. This sorrow, characterized as a 'sullen hopelessness of heart,' speaks to the universal experience of loss and the emotional struggle that follows the departure from something that brings joy.
In practice
In a speech about the fleeting nature of happiness, one might quote Poe to emphasize the inevitability of loss.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of the certainty of Godβ¦ Among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass β a beautiful swift seeming of spring; which, after a dayβs heat, fell dusty.
The right of nature... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life.
Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.
THE FATHER: But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here? In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do.
It's very difficult to convince other countries that they shouldn't pursue nuclear weapons programs if we ourselves are actively developing a component of a strategic defense system.
PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.
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