Ancestral Spirits

Famous quotes containing the words ancestral and/or spirits:

    “Odour of blood on the ancestral stair!
    And we that have shed none must gather there
    And clamour in drunken frenzy for the moon.”
    —William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    “The twentieth year is well-nigh past;
    Since first our sky was overcast,
    Ah would that this might be the last!
    My Mary!
    Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
    I see thee daily weaker grow—
    ‘Twas my distress that brought thee low,
    My Mary!
    Thy needles, once a shining store,
    For my sake restless heretofore,
    Now rust disus’d, and shine no more,
    My Mary!”
    —William Cowper (1731–1800)