Thomas Campbell Quotes: Sources, Meanings & Themes
Browse quotations by Thomas Campbell with named works, context notes, meanings and recurring themes.
Source identified1
Image design Lavender
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“For here the exile met from every clime, And spoke in friendship every distant tongue:”
Meaning & context
The narrator imagines Wyoming as a place where displaced people from different European backgrounds can live together peacefully across languages.
Source details
Gertrude of Wyoming, Part I, stanza IV, represented in The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, Project Gutenberg #59788, around printed page 46. Campbell's ‘exile ... from every clime’ lines idealize the pre-conflict Wyoming settlement before the poem turns toward violence associated with the 1778 Wyoming conflict. They remain Romantic historical-poetic framing rather than a factual demographic account of colonial Pennsylvania.
Source identified2
Image design Botanical Sage
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“To live in hearts we leave behind, Is not to die.”
Meaning & context
Campbell suggests that a person’s influence can continue through the memories and moral lives of others even after biological death.
Source details
“Hallowed Ground,” represented in The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, Project Gutenberg #59788. The stanza reflects on memory, public service, death and what makes ground or remembrance sacred.
Source identified3
Image design Linen
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“’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue.”
Meaning & context
Campbell uses a distant mountain to show how remoteness can make a scene—and, by analogy, anticipated future happiness—appear especially attractive.
Source details
The Pleasures of Hope, Part I, represented in The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, Project Gutenberg #59788. ‘’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view’ appears in the poem's opening mountain image and immediately leads into a comparison with imagined future joys appearing more pleasing from afar. It remains Romantic poetic analogy and philosophical observation rather than an empirical law of visual perception, memory or decision-making.