39 quotes found
"Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze, A visitant that while it fans my cheek Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings From the green fields, and from yon azure sky. Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come To none more grateful than to me; escaped From the vast city, where I long had pined A discontented sojourner: now free, Free as a bird to settle where I will."
"The earth is all before me. With a heart Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty, I look about; and should the chosen guide Be nothing better than a wandering cloud, I cannot miss my way."
"Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear."
"Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society."
"The grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still, For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me."
"Huge and mighty forms, that do not live Like living men, moved slowly through the mind By day, and were a trouble to my dreams."
"Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought, That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion."
"A grandeur in the beatings of the heart."
"All shod with steel, We hissed along the polished ice in games Confederate."
"With the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy."
"Leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a star That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain."
"Yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me—even as if the earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal round!"
"And I was taught to feel, perhaps too much, The self-sufficing power of Solitude."
"Many are our joys In youth, but oh! what happiness to live When every hour brings palpable access Of knowledge, when all knowledge is delight, And sorrow is not there!"
"For I would walk alone, Under the quiet stars, and at that time Have felt whate'er there is of power in sound To breathe an elevated mood, by form Or image unprofaned; and I would stand, If the night blackened with a coming storm, Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are The ghostly language of the ancient earth, Or make their dim abode in distant winds. Thence did I drink the visionary power; And deem not profitless those fleeting moods Of shadowy exultation: not for this, That they are kindred to our purer mind And intellectual life; but that the soul, Remembering how she felt, but what she felt Remembering not, retains an obscure sense Of possible sublimity, whereto With growing faculties she doth aspire, With faculties still growing, feeling still That whatsoever point they gain, they yet Have something to pursue."
"Where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone."
"There's not a man That lives who hath not known his god-like hours."
"When from our better selves we have too long Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, How gracious, how benign, is Solitude."
"A day Spent in a round of strenuous idleness."
"Oh! give us once again the wishing cap Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood, And Sabra in the forest with St. George! The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap One precious gain, that he forgets himself."
"Frank-hearted maids of rocky Cumberland."
"'Tis told by one whom stormy waters threw, With fellow-sufferers by the shipwreck spared, Upon a desert coast, that having brought To land a single volume, saved by chance, A treatise of Geometry."
"Mighty is the charm Of those abstractions to a mind beset With images, and haunted by herself, And specially delightful unto me Was that clear synthesis built up aloft So gracefully; even then when it appeared Not more than a mere plaything, or a toy To sense embodied: not the thing it is In verity, an independent world, Created out of pure intelligence."
"Multitudes of hours Pilfered away, by what the Bard who sang Of the Enchanter Indolence hath called "Good-natured lounging," and behold a map Of my collegiate life."
"Another morn Risen on mid-noon."
"Whether we be young or old, Our destiny, our being's heart and home, Is with infinitude, and only there; With hope it is, hope that can never die, Effort and expectation, and desire, And something evermore about to be."
"Characters of the great Apocalypse, The types and symbols of Eternity, Of first, and last, and midst, and without end."
"And Como! thou, a treasure whom the earth Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth Of Abyssinian privacy. I spake Of thee, thy chestnut woods, and garden plots Of Indian-corn tended by dark-eyed maids; Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines, Winding from house to house, from town to town, Sole link that binds them to each other; walks, League after league, and cloistral avenues, Where silence dwells if music be not there: While yet a youth undisciplined in verse, Through fond ambition of that hour, I strove To chant your praise; nor can approach you now Ungreeted by a more melodious song, Where tones of nature smoothed by learned art May flow in lasting current. Like a breeze Or sunbeam over your domain I passed In motion without pause; but ye have left Your beauty with me, a serene accord Of forms and colors, passive, yet endowed In their submissiveness with power as sweet And gracious, almost might I dare to say, As virtue is, or goodness; sweet as love, Or the remembrance of a generous deed, Or mildest visitation of pure thought, When God, the giver of all joy, is thanked Religiously, in silent blessedness; Sweet as this last herself, for such it is."
"How men lived Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still Strangers, not knowing each the other's name."
"Nor was it mean delight To watch crude Nature work in untaught minds; To note the laws and progress of belief; Though obstinate on this way, yet on that How willingly we travel, and how far! To have, for instance, brought upon the scene The champion, Jack the Giant-killer: Lo! He dons his coat of darkness; on the stage Walks, and achieves his wonders, from the eye Of living Mortal covert, "as the moon Hid in her vacant interlunar cave." Delusion bold! and how can it be wrought? The garb he wears is black as death, the word "Invisible" flames forth upon his chest."
"How oft, amid those overflowing streets, Have I gone forward with the crowd, and said Unto myself, "The face of every one That passes by me is a mystery!""
"All moveables of wonder, from all parts, Are here—Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs, The Horse of knowledge, and the learned Pig, The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire, Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl, The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes, The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows, All out-o'-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things, All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts Of man, his dullness, madness, and their feats All jumbled up together, to compose A Parliament of Monsters."
"Oh, blank confusion! true epitome Of what the mighty City is herself, To thousands upon thousands of her sons, Living amid the same perpetual whirl Of trivial objects, melted and reduced To one identity, by differences That have no law, no meaning, and no end— Oppression, under which even highest minds Must labour, whence the strongest are not free."
"Brothers all In honour, as in one community, Scholars and gentlemen."
"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!"
"The budding rose above the rose full blown."
"There is One great society alone on earth: The noble Living and the noble Dead."
"Go to the Poets, they will speak to thee More perfectly of purer creatures;—yet If reason be nobility in man, Can aught be more ignoble than the man Whom they delight in, blinded as he is By prejudice, the miserable slave Of low ambition or distempered love?"
"Here must thou be, O Man! Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here; Here keepest thou in singleness thy state: No other can divide with thee this work: No secondary hand can intervene To fashion this ability; 'tis thine, The prime and vital principle is thine In the recesses of thy nature, far From any reach of outward fellowship, Else is not thine at all."