Skip to content
Linespedia

Evil Influence

Topics: classic

'Tis not the violent hands alone that bring     The curse, the ravage, and the downward doom,     Although to these full oft the yawning tomb     Owes deadly surfeit; but a keener sting,     A more immortal agony will cling     To the half fashioned sin which would assume     Fair Virtue's garb; the eye that sows the gloom     With quiet seeds of Death henceforth to spring     What time the sun of passion burning fierce     Breaks through the kindly cloud of circumstance;     The bitter word, and the unkindly glance,     The crust and canker coming with the years,     Are liker Death than arrows and the lance     Which through the living heart at once doth pierce.

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"'Tis not the violent hands alone that bring..."

Exploring the themes of classic, George MacDonald delivers a powerful performance in "Evil Influence"... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"I know what beauty is, for thou             Hast set the world within my heart;             Of me thou madest it a part;         I never lo"

"Ance was a woman wha's hert was gret;         Her love was sae dumb it was 'maist a grief;     She brak the box--it's tellt o' her yet--"

"Within each living man there doth reside,     In some unrifled chamber of the heart,     A hidden treasure: wayward as thou art     I love thee"

"And is not Earth thy living picture, where     Thou utterest beauty, simple and profound,     In the same form by wondrous union bound;     Whe"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"I know what beauty is, for thou             Hast s..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.