Poetry

"Ever and ever yet the verses owning — as, first, I here and now Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name, Walt Whitman"

"One's-self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. …The Female equally with the Male I sing. Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine, The Modern Man I sing."

"I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any, Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering, (Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the field the world, For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul, Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles, I above all promote brave soldiers."

"Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny, You not a reminiscence of the land alone, You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not whither, yet ever full of faith, Consort to every ship that sails, sail you! Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it here in every leaf;) Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the imperious waves, Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea, This song for mariners and all their ships."

"Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be, I project the history of the future."

"To thee old cause! Thou peerless, passionate, good cause, Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea, Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands, After a strange sad war, great war for thee, (I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought, for thee,) These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee."

"I met a seer, Passing the hues and objects of the world, The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense, To glean eidolons. Put in thy chants said he, No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in, Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of all, That of eidolons."

"All space, all time, (The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns, Swelling, collapsing, ending, serving their longer, shorter use,) Fill'd with eidolons only. The noiseless myriads, The infinite oceans where the rivers empty, The separate countless free identities, like eyesight, The true realities, eidolons. Not this the world, Nor these the universes, they the universes, Purport and end, ever the permanent life of life, Eidolons, eidolons."

"Thy very songs not in thy songs, No special strains to sing, none for itself, But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating, A round full-orb'd eidolon."

"For him I sing, I raise the present on the past, (As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,) With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws, To make himself by them the law unto himself."

"When I read the book, the biography famous, And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life? And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life? (As if any man really knew aught of my life, Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life, Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections I seek for my own use to trace out here.)"

"Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much, The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion, The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much, I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs."

"How they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals,) How dear and dreadful they are to the earth, How they inure to themselves as much as to any — what a paradox appears their age, How people respond to them, yet know them not, How there is something relentless in their fate all times, How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward, And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase."

"Shut not your doors to me proud libraries, For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring, Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made, The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing, A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by the intellect, But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page."

"Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for, But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, Arouse! for you must justify me. I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness. I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face, Leaving it to you to prove and define it, Expecting the main things from you."

"STRANGER! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?"

"I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love. (6)"

"I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion's sake. (7)"

"None has begun to think how divine he himself is and how certain the future is. (7)"

"I say the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion. (7)"

"Nothing can happen more beautiful than death. (12)"

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. (1)"

"You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self. (2)"

"To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so. … I and this mystery here we stand. (3)"

"Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul. Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen, Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. (3)"

"Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself. Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean, Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest. (3)"

"Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it. Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders, I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait. (4)"

"Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love, And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed. (5)"

"A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. … And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. … What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. (6)"

"Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it. I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots, And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good, The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good. I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself, (They do not know how immortal, but I know.) (7)"

"Do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else. (13)"

"The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread wings, I see in them and myself the same old law. The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections, They scorn the best I can do to relate them. (14)"

"What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me, Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, Not asking the sky to come down to my good will, Scattering it freely forever. (14)"

"The city sleeps and the country sleeps, The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time, The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife; And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, And such as it is to be of these more or less I am, And of these one and all I weave the song of myself. (15)"

"Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat, A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest, A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons, Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion. (16)"

"The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place, The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place, The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place. (16)"

"These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing. This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is, This the common air that bathes the globe. (17)"

"With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums, I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain persons. … Vivas to those who have fail'd! And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea! And to those themselves who sank in the sea! And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes! And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known! (18)"

"This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger, It is for the wicked just same as the righteous, I make appointments with all, I will not have a single person slighted or left away. (19)"

"Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has. Do you take it I would astonish? Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering through the woods? Do I astonish more than they? This hour I tell things in confidence, I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you. (19)"

"All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own, Else it were time lost listening to me. I do not snivel that snivel the world over, That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth. Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, conformity goes to the fourth-remov'd, I wear my hat as I please indoors or out. (20)"

"In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less, And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them. (20)"

"To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow, All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means. (20)"

"I know I am deathless, I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass (20)"

"I know I am august, I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood, I see that the elementary laws never apologize, (I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.) (20)"

"I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content. One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait. (20)"

"My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time. (20)"

"I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue. (21)"

"I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men. (21)"

"Have you outstript the rest? are you the President? It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on. (21)"

"My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait, I moisten the roots of all that has grown. (22)"

"Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work'd over and rectified? (22)"

"What behaved well in the past or behaves well to-day is not such wonder, The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an infidel. (22)"

"A word of the faith that never balks, Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely. It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all, That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all. (23)"

"Gentlemen, to you the first honors always! Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling, I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling. (23)"

"Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, No more modest than immodest. Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs! Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me. (24)"

"Through me many long dumb voices, Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves, Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs, Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion, And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the father-stuff, And of the rights of them the others are down upon, Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised, Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung. Through me forbidden voices, Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil, Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd. (24)"

"I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from, The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds. (24)"

"I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious, Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy, I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish, Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again. (24)"

"A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books. (24)"

"Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me, If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me. (25)"

"My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach, With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds. (25)"

"Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then? (25)"

"My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am, Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me, I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you. Writing and talk do not prove me, I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face, With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic. (25)"

"Now I will do nothing but listen, To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it. (26)"

"Mine is no callous shell, I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop, They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me. I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy, To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can stand. (27)"

"Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity, Flames and ether making a rush for my veins (28)"

"All truths wait in all things, They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it, They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon, The insignificant is as big to me as any, (What is less or more than a touch?) (30)"

"Logic and sermons never convince, The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul. (Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so, Only what nobody denies is so.) A minute and a drop of me settle my brain, I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps, And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman, And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other, And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it becomes omnific, And until one and all shall delight us, and we them. (30)"

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. (31)"

"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. So they show their relations to me and I accept them, They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession. (32)"

"I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion, Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them? Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you. (32)"

"Space and Time! now I see it is true, what I guess'd at, What I guess'd when I loaf'd on the grass, What I guess'd while I lay alone in my bed, And again as I walk'd the beach under the paling stars of the morning. My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in sea-gaps, I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents, I am afoot with my vision. (33)"

"I visit the orchards of spheres and look at the product, And look at quintillions ripen'd and look at quintillions green. I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul, My course runs below the soundings of plummets. I help myself to material and immaterial, No guard can shut me off, no law prevent me. I anchor my ship for a little while only, My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me. (33)"

"I understand the large hearts of heroes, The courage of present times and all times, How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm, How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of nights, And chalk'd in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we will not desert you; How he follow'd with them and tack'd with them three days and would not give it up, How he saved the drifting company at last, How the lank loose-gown'd women look'd when boated from the side of their prepared graves, How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipp'd unshaved men; All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine, I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there. (33)"

"The disdain and calmness of martyrs, The mother of old, condemn'd for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her children gazing on, The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence, blowing, cover'd with sweat, The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the murderous buckshot and the bullets, All these I feel or am. I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs, Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen, I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the ooze of my skin, I fall on the weeds and stones, The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close, Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks. Agonies are one of my changes of garments, I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person, My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe. (33)"

"I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken, Tumbling walls buried me in their debris, Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades, I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels, They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth. (33)"

"I take part, I see and hear the whole (33)"

"Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain, We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part of the fighting. (33)"

"You laggards there on guard! look to your arms! In at the conquer'd doors they crowd! I am possess'd! Embody all presences outlaw'd or suffering, See myself in prison shaped like another man, And feel the dull unintermitted pain. (37)"

"Askers embody themselves in me and I am embodied in them, I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and beg."

"I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake. That I could forget the mockers and insults! That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the bludgeons and hammers! That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning. (38)"

"I troop forth replenish'd with supreme power, one of an average unending procession, Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines, Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth, The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of years. (38)"

"Man or woman, I might tell how I like you, but cannot, And might tell what it is in me and what it is in you, but cannot, And might tell that pining I have, that pulse of my nights and days. Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself. (40)"

"I am not to be denied, I compel, I have stores plenty and to spare, And any thing I have I bestow. I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me, You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you. To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean, On his right cheek I put the family kiss, And in my soul I swear I never will deny him. (40)"

"On women fit for conception I start bigger and nimbler babes. (This day I am jetting the stuff of far more arrogant republics.) (40)"

"Magnifying and applying come I, Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson, Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha, In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved, With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image, Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more, Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days, (They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,) Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself, bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see, Discovering as much or more in a framer framing a house, Putting higher claims for him there with his roll'd-up sleeves driving the mallet and chisel, Not objecting to special revelations, considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation, Lads ahold of fire-engines and hook-and-ladder ropes no less to me than the gods of the antique wars... (41)"

"The bull and the bug never worshipp'd half enough, Dung and dirt more admirable than was dream'd, The supernatural of no account, myself waiting my time to be one of the supremes, The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the best, and be as prodigious. (42)"

"The little plentiful manikins skipping around in collars and tail'd coats I am aware who they are, (they are positively not worms or fleas,) I acknowledge the duplicates of myself, the weakest and shallowest is deathless with me, What I do and say the same waits for them, Every thought that flounders in me the same flounders in them. (42)"

"I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over, My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient and modern… (43)"

"Waiting responses from oracles, honoring the gods, saluting the sun, Making a fetich of the first rock or stump, powowing with sticks in the circle of obis, Helping the llama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols, Dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession, rapt and austere in the woods a gymnosophist, Drinking mead from the skull-cap, to Shastas and Vedas admirant, minding the Koran, Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife, beating the serpent-skin drum, Accepting the Gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing assuredly that he is divine… (43)"

"Down-hearted doubters dull and excluded, Frivolous, sullen, moping, angry, affected, dishearten'd, atheistical, I know every one of you, I know the sea of torment, doubt, despair and unbelief. … Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers, I take my place among you as much as among any, The past is the push of you, me, all, precisely the same, And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, me, all, precisely the same. I do not know what is untried and afterward, But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail. (43)"

"Each who passes is consider'd, each who stops is consider'd, not single one can it fail. It cannot fail the young man who died and was buried, Nor the young woman who died and was put by his side, Nor the little child that peep'd in at the door, and then drew back and was never seen again, Nor the old man who has lived without purpose, and feels it with bitterness worse than gall…(43)"

"It is time to explain myself — let us stand up. What is known I strip away, I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown. The clock indicates the moment — but what does eternity indicate? We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers, There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them. Births have brought us richness and variety, And other births will bring us richness and variety. I do not call one greater and one smaller, That which fills its period and place is equal to any. Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my sister? I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me, All has been gentle with me, I keep no account with lamentation, (What have I to do with lamentation?) I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I an encloser of things to be. (44)"

"Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me, Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there, I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon. (44)"

"Immense have been the preparations for me, Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me. (44)"

"For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings, They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me, My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it. For it the nebula cohered to an orb, The long slow strata piled to rest it on, Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care. All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight me, Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul. (44)"

"There is no stoppage and never can be stoppage, If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces, were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not avail the long run, We should surely bring up again where we now stand, And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther."

"A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do not hazard the span or make it impatient, They are but parts, any thing is but a part. See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that, Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that. (45)"

"I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and never will be measured. (46)"

"I have no chair, no church, no philosophy, I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange, But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll, My left hand hooking you round the waist, My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road. Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself. It is not far, it is within reach, Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know, Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land. (46)"

"Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go."

"This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven, And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then? And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond. You are also asking me questions and I hear you, I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself. (46)"

"Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams, Now I wash the gum from your eyes, You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life. (46)"

"Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore, Now I will you to be a bold swimmer…"

"I am the teacher of athletes, He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own, He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher. (47)"

"I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me? I follow you whoever you are from the present hour, My words itch at your ears till you understand them."

"It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you, Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen'd. (47)"

"I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a house, And I swear I will never translate myself at all, only to him or her who privately stays with me in the open air. If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore, The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves a key, The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words. No shutter'd room or school can commune with me, But roughs and little children better than they. (47)"

"I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is, And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud, And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth, And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times, And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero, And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe, And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. (48)"

"I say to mankind, Be not curious about God, For I who am curious about each am not curious about God, (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.) (48)"

"I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go, Others will punctually come for ever and ever. (48)"

"And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me. (49)"

"There is that in me — I do not know what it is — but I know it is in me. … I do not know it — it is without name — it is a word unsaid, It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol. Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on, To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. (50)"

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) (51)"

"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

"I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless…"

"Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you."

"To the garden the world anew ascending, Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding, The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being, Curious here behold my resurrection after slumber, The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again, Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous…"

"From pent-up aching rivers, From that of myself without which I were nothing, From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand sole among men, From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus, Singing the song of procreation…"

"I willingly stake all for you, O let me be lost if it must be so! O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think? What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and exhaust each other if it must be so;)"

"I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul. (1)"

"The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account, That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect. (2)"

"There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well, All things please the soul, but these please the soul well. (4)"

"The female contains all qualities and tempers them, She is in her place and moves with perfect balance, She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active, She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters. (5)"

"The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place, He too is all qualities, he is action and power, The flush of the known universe is in him…(6)"

"The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred, No matter who it is, it is sacred… (6)"

"All is a procession, The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion. (6)"

"Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant? Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight? Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts, For you only, and not for him and her? (6)"

"A man's body at auction, (For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,) I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business. (7)"

"Gentlemen look on this wonder, Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it, For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant, For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd. In this head the all-baffling brain, In it and below it the makings of heroes. (7)"

"This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns, In him the start of populous states and rich republics, Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments. How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries? (Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?) (7)"

"A woman's body at auction, She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers, She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers. (8)"

"Have you ever loved the body of a woman? Have you ever loved the body of a man? Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth? (8)"

"If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred, And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted, And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face. (8)"

"Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body? For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves. (8)"

"O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you, I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,) I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems… (9)"

"O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are the soul!"

"A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking."

"Sex contains all, bodies, souls, Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk, All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth, These are contain'd in sex as parts of itself and justifications of itself."

"Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex, Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers."

"I draw you close to me, you women, I cannot let you go, I would do you good, I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for others' sakes, Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards, They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me."

"I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me."

"I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so lovingly now."

"The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent, while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent, The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity, The oath of procreation I have sworn…"

"What is this that frees me so in storms? What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?"

"O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man! O savage and tender achings!"

"O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me in defiance of the world!"

"O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last! To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and you from yours! To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature! To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth! To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am."

"To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds! To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous! To court destruction with taunts, with invitations! To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!"

"To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom! With one brief hour of madness and joy."

"I love you, before long I die, I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you, For I could not die till I once look'd on you, For I fear'd I might afterward lose you."

"We two, how long we were fool'd, Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes, We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return…"

"I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions? O you shunn'd persons, I at least do not shun you, I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet, I will be more to you than to any of the rest."

"Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions, Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met there who detain'd me for love of me…"

"Where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?"

"Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach, Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass, Be not afraid of my body."

"Escaped from the life that exhibits itself, From all the standards hitherto publish'd, from the pleasures, profits, conformities, Which too long I was offering to feed my soul, Clear to me now standards not yet publish'd, clear to me that my soul, That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades…"

"O I do not know whether many passing by will discover you or inhale your faint odor, but I believe a few will..."

"Whoever you are holding me now in hand, Without one thing all will be useless, I give you fair warning before you attempt me further, I am not what you supposed, but far different."

"These leaves conning you con at peril, For these leaves and me you will not understand, They will elude you at first and still more afterward, I will certainly elude you. Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold! Already you see I have escaped from you."

"I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches, Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous of dark green, And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself, But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not,"

"Though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide in a wide flat space, Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, I know very well I could not."

"Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,"

"I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you."

"This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone, It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful…"

"I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions, But really I am neither for nor against institutions, (What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?) Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these States inland and seaboard, And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large that dents the water, Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument, The institution of the dear love of comrades."

"I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth, I dream'd that was the new city of Friends, Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led the rest, It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, And in all their looks and words."

"Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road. (1)"

"The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them. (1)"

"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. (5)"

"I am larger, better than I thought, I did not know I held so much goodness. (5)"

"All seems beautiful to me, I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me I would do the same to you, I will recruit for myself and you as I go, I will scatter myself among men and women as I go, I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them, Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me, Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me. (5)"

"Wisdom is not finally tested in schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof, Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things; Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul. (6)"

"The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first, Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd, I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell. (9)"

"I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes, We convince by our presence. (10)"

"Know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls. (13)"

"All parts away for the progress of souls, All religion, all solid things, arts, governments — all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe. (13)"

"They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go, But I know that they go toward the best — toward something great. (13)"

"Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth! (13)"

"Camerado, I give you my hand! I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live? (15)"

"Now list to my morning's romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer, To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine before me."

"A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother, How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother? Tell him to send me the signs. And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand and his left hand in my right hand, And I answer for his brother and for men, and I answer for him that answers for all, and send these signs."

"Him all wait for, him all yield up to, his word is decisive and final, Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves as amid light, Him they immerse and he immerses them."

"Nothing for any one but what is for him, near and far are for him, the ships in the offing, The perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they are for anybody."

"He puts things in their attitudes, He puts to-day out of himself with plasticity and love, He places his own times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them."

"He is the Answerer, What can be answer'd he answers, and what cannot be answer'd he shows how it cannot be answer'd. A man is a summons and challenge, (It is vain to skulk — do you hear that mocking and laughter? do you hear the ironical echoes?) Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction, He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also. Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely by day or by night, He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying of hands on the knobs. His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is, The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed."

"Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and tongue, He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and any man translates himself also, One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he sees how they join."

"He says indifferently and alike How are you friend? to the President at his levee, And he says Good-day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field, And both understand him and know that his speech is right."

"He walks with perfect ease in the capitol, He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another, Here is our equal appearing and new."

"Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has follow'd the sea, And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist, And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them, No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it or has follow'd it, No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there."

"The English believe he comes of their English stock, A Jew to the Jew he seems, a Russ to the Russ, usual and near, removed from none."

"The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood, The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of him, he strangely transmutes them, They are not vile any more, they hardly know themselves they are so grown."

"The indications and tally of time, Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs, Time, always without break, indicates itself in parts, What always indicates the poet is the crowd of the pleasant company of singers, and their words, The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark, but the words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark, The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality, His insight and power encircle things and the human race, He is the glory and extract thus far of things and of the human race."

"The singers do not beget, only the Poet begets, The singers are welcom'd, understood, appear often enough, but rare has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker of poems, the Answerer, (Not every century nor every five centuries has contain'd such a day, for all its names.)"

"All this time and at all times wait the words of true poems, The words of true poems do not merely please, The true poets are not followers of beauty but the august masters of beauty…"

"The words of the true poems give you more than poems, They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, and every thing else, They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes, They do not seek beauty, they are sought, Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick."

"They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset, They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full, Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the meanings, To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless rings and never be quiet again."

"We consider bibles and religions divine — I do not say they are not divine, I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still, It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life, Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, than they are shed out of you."

"The sum of all known reverence I add up in you whoever you are, The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him, The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them, The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you, Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the going and coming of commerce and malls, are all for you."

"A song of the rolling earth, and of words according, Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots? No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground and sea, They are in the air, they are in you."

"Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?"

"The earth neither lags nor hastens, It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump, It is not half beautiful only, defects and excrescences show just as much as perfections show."

"The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail and reflection does not fail, Also the day and night do not fail, and the voyage we pursue does not fail."

"Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, For none more than you are the present and the past, For none more than you is immortality."

"Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word of the past and present, and the true word of immortality; No one can acquire for another — not one, Not one can grow for another — not one."

"The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him, The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him."

"No man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his own."

"I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete, The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken."

"I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words, All merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth, Toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths of the earth, Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch."

"I swear I see what is better than to tell the best, It is always to leave the best untold."

"The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow, all or any is best, It is not what you anticipated, it is cheaper, easier, nearer, Things are not dismiss'd from the places they held before, The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before, Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before, But the soul is also real, it too is positive and direct, No reasoning, no proof has establish'd it, Undeniable growth has establish'd it."

"I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells the best, I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold."

"Say on, sayers! sing on, singers! Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth! Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost, It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use, When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear."

"I swear to you the architects shall appear without fall, I swear to you they will understand you and justify you, The greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses all and is faithful to all, He and the rest shall not forget you, they shall perceive that you are not an iota less than they, You shall be fully glorified in them."

"Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams, I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands…"

"Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem, I whisper with my lips close to your ear. I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you."

"I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you, None has understood you, but I understand you, None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself, None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you, None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you, I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself."

"O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon yourself all your life, Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time, What you have done returns already in mockeries, (Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?) The mockeries are not you, Underneath them and within them I see you lurk, I pursue you where none else has pursued you…"

"There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you, There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you, No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you, No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you."

"As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like carefully to you, I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you."

"Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard! These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you…"

"The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing sufficiency, Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself, Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted, Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way."

"On the beach at night, Stands a child with her father, Watching the east, the autumn sky."

"Weep not, child, Weep not, my darling, With these kisses let me remove your tears, The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious, They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition, Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge, They are immortal…"

"The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure, The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine."

"Something there is, (With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper, I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,) Something there is more immortal even than the stars, (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,) Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter Longer than sun or any revolving satellite, Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades."

"When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars."

"What you give me I cheerfully accept, A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money, as I rendezvous with my poems, A traveler's lodging and breakfast as journey through the States, — why should I be ashamed to own such gifts? why to advertise for them? For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man and woman, For I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all the gifts of the universe."

"Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality, And the vast all that is call'd Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead."

"Hast never come to thee an hour, A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles, fashions, wealth? These eager business aims — books, politics, art, amours, To utter nothingness?"

"Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling…"

"Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal sanities!"

"Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice, Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet, Those who love each other shall become invincible, They shall yet make Columbia victorious."

"Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious, You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth."

"These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron, I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you. (Were you looking to be held together by lawyers? Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms? Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)"

"Word over all, beautiful as the sky, Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost, That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this solid world; For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead…"

"Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me? Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes? Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow? Why — I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand — nor am I now…"

"What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave my works, And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with piano-tunes, For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me."

"Turn, and be not alarm'd O Libertad — turn your undying face, To where the future, greater than all the past, Is swiftly, surely preparing for you."

"When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring."

"Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love."

"By blue Ontario's shore, As I mused of these warlike days and of peace return'd, and the dead that return no more, A Phantom gigantic superb, with stern visage accosted me, Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of America, chant me the carol of victory, And strike up the marches of Libertad, marches more powerful yet, And sing me before you go the song of the throes of Democracy. (1)"

"A Nation announcing itself, I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated, I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms. (2)"

"A breed whose proof is in time and deeds, What we are we are, nativity is answer enough to objections, We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded, We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves (2)"

"Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves, Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only. (2)"

"(O Mother — O Sisters dear! If we are lost, no victor else has destroy'd us, It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.) (2)"

"Have you thought there could be but a single supreme? There can be any number of supremes — one does not countervail another any more than one eyesight countervails another, or one life countervails another. (3)"

"All is eligible to all, All is for individuals, all is for you, No condition is prohibited, not God's or any. (3)"

"All comes by the body, only health puts you rapport with the universe."

"Produce great Persons, the rest follows. (3)"

"Piety and conformity to them that like, Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like, I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, Crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives! (4)"

"I am he who walks the States with a barb'd tongue, questioning every one I meet, Who are you that wanted only to be told what you knew before? Who are you that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense? (4)"

"O lands, would you be freer than all that has ever been before? If you would be freer than all that has been before, come listen to me. (4)"

"Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials, America brings builders, and brings its own styles. The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work and pass'd to other spheres, A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done. (5)"

"These States are the amplest poem, Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations… (5)"

"Here the flowing trains, here the crowds, equality, diversity, the soul loves. (5)"

"O days of the future I believe in you — I isolate myself for your sake, O America because you build for mankind I build for you, O well-beloved stone-cutters, I lead them who plan with decision and science, Lead the present with friendly hand toward the future. (Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age! But damn that which spends itself with no thought of the stain, pains, dismay, feebleness, it is bequeathing.) (8)"

"To hold men together by paper and seal or by compulsion is no account, That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living principle, as the hold of the limbs of the body or the fibres of plants. (9)"

"Of these States the poet is the equable man, Not in him but off from him things are grotesque, eccentric, fail of their full returns, Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad, He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither more nor less, He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key, He is the equalizer of his age and land, He supplies what wants supplying, he checks what wants checking, In peace out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich, thrifty, building populous towns, encouraging agriculture, arts, commerce, lighting the study of man, the soul, health, immortality, government, In war he is the best backer of the war, he fetches artillery as good as the engineer's, he can make every word he speaks draw blood, The years straying toward infidelity he withholds by his steady faith, He is no arguer, he is judgment, (Nature accepts him absolutely,) He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun failing round helpless thing, As he sees the farthest he has the most faith, His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things, In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent, He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement, He sees eternity in men and women, he does not see men and women as dreams or dots. (10)"

"For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals, For that, the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders, The attitude of him cheers up slaves and horrifies foreign despots. (10)"

"Without extinction is Liberty, without retrograde is Equality, They live in the feelings of young men and the best women, (Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the earth been always ready to fall for Liberty.) (10)"

"For the great Idea, That, O my brethren, that is the mission of poets. (11)"

"Songs of stern defiance ever ready, Songs of the rapid arming and the march, The flag of peace quick-folded, and instead the flag we know, Warlike flag of the great Idea. (11)"

"Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems behind them, and assumed the poems and processes of Democracy? Are you faithful to things? do you teach what the land and sea, the bodies of men, womanhood, amativeness, heroic angers, teach? Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities? Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies, whirls, fierce contentions? are you very strong? are you really of the whole People? Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion? Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animating now to life itself? Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of these States? Have you too the old ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality? (12)"

"Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distill'd from poems pass away, The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes… (13)"

"The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr'd till his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorb'd it. (13)"

"In the need of songs, philosophy, an appropriate native grand-opera, shipcraft, any craft, He or she is greatest who contributes the greatest original practical example. (13)"

"Give me to sing the songs of the great Idea, take all the rest, I have loved the earth, sun, animals, I have despised riches, I have given alms to every one that ask'd, stood up for the stupid and crazy, devoted my income and labor to others, Hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence toward the people, taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown, Gone freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young, and with the mothers of families, Read these leaves to myself in the open air, tried them by trees, stars, rivers, Dismiss'd whatever insulted my own soul or defiled my body, Claim'd nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim'd for others on the same terms, Sped to the camps, and comrades found and accepted from every State, (Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean'd to breathe his last, This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish'd, rais'd, restored, To life recalling many a prostrate form;) I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself, Rejecting none, permitting all. (14)"

"Underneath all, individuals, I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals, The American compact is altogether with individuals, The only government is that which makes minute of individuals, The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual — namely to You. (15)"

"Underneath all is the Expression of love for men and women, (I swear I have seen enough of mean and impotent modes of expressing love for men and women, After this day I take my own modes of expressing love for men and women.) (16)"

"I am for those that have never been master'd, For men and women whose tempers have never been master'd, For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master."

"I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth, Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all."

"There was a child went forth every day, And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became, And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day, Or for many years or stretching cycles of years."

"Affection that will not be gainsay'd, the sense of what is real, the thought if after all it should prove unreal, The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time, the curious whether and hot are they?"

"The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping, The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint away solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies motionless in, The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud, These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day."

"Courage yet, my brother or my sister! Keep on — Liberty is to be subserv'd whatever occurs; That is nothing that is quell'd by one or two failures, or any number of failures, Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness…"

"What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents, Invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement, Waiting patiently, waiting its time."

"(Not songs of loyalty alone are these, But songs of insurrection also, For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel the world over, And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him, And stakes his life to be lost at any moment.)"

"The battle rages with many a loud alarm and frequent advance and retreat, The infidel triumphs, or supposes he triumphs, The prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, iron necklace and leadballs do their work, The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres, The great speakers and writers are exiled, they lie sick in distant lands, The cause is asleep, the strongest throats are choked with their own blood, The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet; But for all this Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel enter'd into full possession."

"When liberty goes out of a place it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go, It waits for all the rest to go, it is the last."

"When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs, And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth, Then only shall liberty or the idea of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth, And the infidel come into full possession."

"My spirit to yours dear brother, Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you, I do not sound your name, but I understand you, I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also, That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and succession, We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times, We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies, Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men, We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted, We hear the bawling and din, we are reach'd at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side, They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade, Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras, Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are."

"Be composed — be at ease with me — I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature, Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you, Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you."

"My girl I appoint with you an appointment, and I charge you that you make preparation to be worthy to meet me, And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come."

"Till then I salute you with a significant look that you do not forget me."

"Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know of nothing else but miracles..."

"The wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright, Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place."

"To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, Every foot of the interior swarms with the same. To me the sea is a continual miracle, The fishes that swim — the rocks — the motion of the waves — the ships with men in them, What stranger miracles are there?"

"Rest not till you rivet and publish yourself of your own Personality."

"Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy; A man is a great thing upon the earth and through eternity, but every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman; First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself."

"What am I after all but a child, pleas'd with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over; I stand apart to hear — it never tires me. To you your name also; Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in the sound of your name?"

"Who believes not only in our globe with its sun and moon, but in other globes with their suns and moons, Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations, The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together."

"The great laws take and effuse without argument, I am of the same style, for I am their friend…"

"I cannot say to any person what I hear — I cannot say it to myself — it is very wonderful."

"It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe moving so exactly in its orbit for ever and ever, without one jolt or the untruth of a single second, I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years, nor ten billions of years, Nor plann'd and built one thing after another as an architect plans and builds a house."

"I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman, Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman, Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else."

"Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal; I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful, And pass'd from a babe in the creeping trance of a couple of summers and winters to articulate and walk — all this is equally wonderful. And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as wonderful. And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful, And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be true, is just as wonderful."

"All submit to them where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis in the soul, Not traditions, not the outer authorities are the judges, They are the judges of outer authorities and of all traditions, They corroborate as they go only whatever corroborates themselves, and touches themselves; For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far and near without one exception."

"Come forward O my soul, and let the rest retire, Listen, lose not, it is toward thee they tend, Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber, For thee they sing and dance O soul. (2)"

"Now the great organ sounds, Tremulous, while underneath, (as the hid footholds of the earth, On which arising rest, and leaping forth depend, All shapes of beauty, grace and strength, all hues we know, Green blades of grass and warbling birds, children that gambol and play, the clouds of heaven above,) The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not, Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest, maternity of all the rest, And with it every instrument in multitudes, The players playing, all the world's musicians, The solemn hymns and masses rousing adoration, All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals, The measureless sweet vocalists of ages, And for their solvent setting earth's own diapason, Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves, A new composite orchestra, binder of years and climes, ten-fold renewer, As of the far-back days the poets tell, the Paradiso, The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done, The journey done, the journeyman come home, And man and art with Nature fused again. (2)"

"Give me to hold all sounds, (I madly struggling cry,) Fill me with all the voices of the universe, Endow me with their throbbings, Nature's also, The tempests, waters, winds, operas and chants, marches and dances, Utter, pour in, for I would take them all! (5)"

"Then I woke softly, And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream, And questioning all those reminiscences, the tempest in its fury, And all the songs of sopranos and tenors, And those rapt oriental dances of religious fervor, And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs, And all the artless plaints of love and grief and death, I said to my silent curious soul out of the bed of the slumber-chamber, Come, for I have found the clew I sought so long, Let us go forth refresh'd amid the day, Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real, Nourish'd henceforth by our celestial dream. (6)"

"Haply what thou hast heard O soul was not the sound of winds, Nor dream of raging storm, nor sea-hawk's flapping wings nor harsh scream…(6)"

"But to a new rhythmus fitted for thee, Poems bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely wafted in night air, uncaught, unwritten, Which let us go forth in the bold day and write. (6)."

"Darest thou now O soul, Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?"

"I see, just see skyward, great cloud-masses, Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing, With at times a half-dimm'd sadden'd far-off star, Appearing and disappearing."

"Chanting the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides, Out of the old and new, out of the square entirely divine, Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed,) from this side Jehovah am I, Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am; Not Time affects me — I am Time, old, modern as any, Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments, As the Earth, the Father, the brown old Kronos, with laws, Aged beyond computation, yet never new, ever with those mighty laws rolling, Relentless I forgive no man — whoever sins dies — I will have that man's life; Therefore let none expect mercy — have the seasons, gravitation, the appointed days, mercy? no more have I, But as the seasons and gravitation, and as all the appointed days that forgive not, I dispense from this side judgments inexorable without the least remorse."

"Consolator most mild, the promis'd one advancing, With gentle hand extended, the mightier God am I, Foretold by prophets and poets in their most rapt prophecies and poems, From this side, lo! the Lord Christ gazes — lo! Hermes I — lo! mine is Hercules' face, All sorrow, labor, suffering, I, tallying it, absorb in myself, Many times have I been rejected, taunted, put in prison, and crucified, and many times shall be again, All the world have I given up for my dear brothers' and sisters' sake, for the soul's sake, Wending my way through the homes of men, rich or poor, with the kiss of affection, For I am affection, I am the cheer-bringing God, with hope and all-enclosing charity, With indulgent words as to children, with fresh and sane words, mine only, Young and strong I pass knowing well I am destin'd myself to an early death; But my charity has no death — my wisdom dies not, neither early nor late, And my sweet love bequeath'd here and elsewhere never dies."

"Aloof, dissatisfied, plotting revolt, Comrade of criminals, brother of slaves, Crafty, despised, a drudge, ignorant, With sudra face and worn brow, black, but in the depths of my heart, proud as any, Lifted now and always against whoever scorning assumes to rule me, Morose, full of guile, full of reminiscences, brooding, with many wiles, (Though it was thought I was baffled, and dispel'd, and my wiles done, but that will never be,) Defiant, I, Satan, still live, still utter words, in new lands duly appearing, (and old ones also,) Permanent here from my side, warlike, equal with any, real as any, Nor time nor change shall ever change me or my words."

"Santa Spirita, breather, life, Beyond the light, lighter than light, Beyond the flames of hell, joyous, leaping easily above hell, Beyond Paradise, perfumed solely with mine own perfume, Including all life on earth, touching, including God, including Saviour and Satan, Ethereal, pervading all, (for without me what were all? what were God?) Essence of forms, life of the real identities, permanent, positive, (namely the unseen,) Life of the great round world, the sun and stars, and of man, I, the general soul, Here the square finishing, the solid, I the most solid, Breathe my breath also through these songs."

"I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world, I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless, in vain I try to think how limitless, I do not doubt that the orbs and the systems of orbs play their swift sports through the air on purpose, and that I shall one day be eligible to do as much as they, and more than they, I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on millions of years, I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice..."

"I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere at any time, is provided for in the inherences of things, I do not think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I believe Heavenly Death provides for all."

"A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them."

"And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul."

"From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you, You are to die — let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate, I am exact and merciless, but I love you — there is no escape for you."

"I sit quietly by, I remain faithful, I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor, I absolve you from all except yourself spiritual bodily, that is eternal, you yourself will surely escape, The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious."

"The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions, Strong thoughts fill you and confidence, you smile, You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick, You do not see the medicines, you do not mind the weeping friends, I am with you, I exclude others from you, there is nothing to be commiserated, I do not commiserate, I congratulate you."

"I was thinking the day most splendid till I saw what the not-day exhibited, I was thinking this globe enough till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of other globes."

"Now while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me I will measure myself by them, And now touch'd with the lives of other globes arrived as far along as those of the earth, Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth, I henceforth no more ignore them than I ignore my own life, Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive."

"O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me, as the day cannot, I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death."

"Pensive and faltering, The words the Dead I write, For living are the Dead, (Haply the only living, only real, And I the apparition, I the spectre.)"

"Thou Mother with thy equal brood, Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only, A special song before I go I'd sing o'er all the rest, For thee, the future."

"I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality, I'd fashion thy ensemble including body and soul, I'd show away ahead thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish'd."

"Belief I sing, and preparation; As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the present only, But greater still from what is yet to come, Out of that formula for thee I sing."

"Thou! mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew, thou transcendental Union! By thee fact to be justified, blended with thought, Thought of man justified, blended with God, Through thy idea, lo, the immortal reality! Through thy reality, lo, the immortal idea!"

"Brain of the New World, what a task is thine, To formulate the Modern — out of the peerless grandeur of the modern, Out of thyself, comprising science, to recast poems, churches, art, (Recast, may-be discard them, end them — maybe their work is done, who knows?) By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead, To limn with absolute faith the mighty living present."

"Thou but the apples, long, long, long a-growing, The fruit of all the Old ripening to-day in thee."

"Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy, Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the Present only, The Past is also stored in thee, Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the Western continent alone, Earth's résumé entire floats on thy keel O ship, is steadied by thy spars, With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee"

"Beautiful world of new superber birth that rises to my eyes, Like a limitless golden cloud filling the western sky, Emblem of general maternity lifted above all, Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons..."

"Thou wonder world yet undefined, unform'd, neither do I define thee, How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future? I feel thy ominous greatness evil as well as good, I watch thee advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past, I see thy light lighting, and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe, But I do not undertake to define thee, hardly to comprehend thee, I but thee name, thee prophesy, as now, I merely thee ejaculate!"

"Thee as another equally needed sun, radiant, ablaze, swift-moving, fructifying all, Thee risen in potent cheerfulness and joy, in endless great hilarity, Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long, that weigh'd so long upon the mind of man, The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man; Thee in thy larger, saner brood of female, male — thee in thy athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East, (To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son, endear'd alike, forever equal,) Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain, Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization, (until which thy proudest material civilization must remain in vain,) Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing worship — thee in no single bible, saviour, merely, Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself, thy bibles incessant within thyself, equal to any, divine as any ... These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophesy."

"Land tolerating all, accepting all, not for the good alone, all good for thee, Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself, Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself."

"Not for success alone, Not to fair-sail unintermitted always, The storm shall dash thy face, the murk of war and worse than war shall cover thee all over, (Wert capable of war, its tug and trials? be capable of peace, its trials, For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in prosperous peace, not war;) In many a smiling mask death shall approach beguiling thee, thou in disease shalt swelter, The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts, seeking to strike thee deep within, Consumption of the worst, moral consumption, shall rouge thy face with hectic, But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all, Whatever they are to-day and whatever through time they may be, They each and all shall lift and pass away and cease from thee, While thou, Time's spirals rounding, out of thyself, thyself still extricating, fusing, Equable, natural, mystical Union thou, (the mortal with immortal blent,) Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future, the spirit of the body and the mind, The soul, its destinies."

"The soul, its destinies, the real real, (Purport of all these apparitions of the real;) In thee America, the soul, its destinies, Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous!"

"Thou mental, moral orb — thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World! The Present holds thee not — for such vast growth as thine, For such unparallel'd flight as thine, such brood as thine, The FUTURE only holds thee and can hold thee."

"Thou orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon!"

"Hear me illustrious! Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee, Even as basking babe, then happy boy alone by some wood edge, thy touching-distant beams enough, Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my invocation."

"(Thou canst not with thy dumbness me deceive, I know before the fitting man all Nature yields, Though answering not in words, the skies, trees, hear his voice — and thou O sun, As for thy throes, thy perturbations, sudden breaks and shafts of flame gigantic, I understand them, I know those flames, those perturbations well.)"

"O'er all the globe that turns its face to thee shining in space, Thou that impartially enfoldest all, not only continents, seas, Thou that to grapes and weeds and little wild flowers givest so liberally, Shed, shed thyself on mine and me, with but a fleeting ray out of thy million millions, Strike through these chants."

"The Lord advances, and yet advances, Always the shadow in front, always the reach'd hand bringing up the laggards."

"Out of this face emerge banners and horses — O superb! I see what is coming, I see the high pioneer-caps, see staves of runners clearing the way, I hear victorious drums."

"These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake, They show their descent from the Master himself. Off the word I have spoken I except not one — red, white, black, are all deific, In each house is the ovum, it comes forth after a thousand years."

"Hark, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician, Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night."

"Blow trumpeter free and clear, I follow thee, While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene, The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day withdraw, A holy calm descends like dew upon me, I walk in cool refreshing night the walks of Paradise, I scent the grass, the moist air and the roses; Thy song expands my numb'd imbonded spirit, thou freest, launchest me, Floating and basking upon heaven's lake."

"Blow again trumpeter! and for thy theme, Take now the enclosing theme of all, the solvent and the setting, Love, that is pulse of all, the sustenance and the pang, The heart of man and woman all for love, No other theme but love — knitting, enclosing, all-diffusing love."

"Love, that is all the earth to lovers — love, that mocks time and space, Love, that is day and night — love, that is sun and moon and stars, Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume, No other words but words of love, no other thought but love."

"O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest, Thou melt'st my heart, my brain — thou movest, drawest, changest them at will; And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me, Thou takest away all cheering light, all hope, I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the opprest of the whole earth, I feel the measureless shame and humiliation of my race, it becomes all mine, Mine too the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of ages, baffled feuds and hatreds, Utter defeat upon me weighs — all lost — the foe victorious, (Yet 'mid the ruins Pride colossal stands unshaken to the last, Endurance, resolution to the last.)"

"Now trumpeter for thy close, Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet, Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope, Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future, Give me for once its prophecy and joy."

"O glad, exulting, culminating song! A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes, Marches of victory — man disenthral'd — the conqueror at last, Hymns to the universal God from universal man — all joy! A reborn race appears — a perfect world, all joy! Women and men in wisdom innocence and health — all joy! Riotous laughing bacchanals fill'd with joy! War, sorrow, suffering gone — the rank earth purged — nothing but joy left! The ocean fill'd with joy — the atmosphere all joy! Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life! Enough to merely be! enough to breathe! Joy! joy! all over joy!"

"O me, man of slack faith so long, Standing aloof, denying portions so long, Only aware to-day of compact all-diffused truth, Discovering to-day there is no lie or form of lie, and can be none, but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon itself, Or as any law of the earth or any natural production of the earth does. (This is curious and may not be realized immediately, but it must be realized, I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest, And that the universe does.)"

"The truth includes all, and is compact just as much as space is compact, And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth — but that all is truth without exception; And henceforth I will go celebrate any thing I see or am, And sing and laugh and deny nothing."

"That which eludes this verse and any verse, Unheard by sharpest ear, unform'd in clearest eye or cunningest mind, Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth, And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly, Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss, Open but still a secret, the real of the real, an illusion, Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the owner, Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme, historians in prose, Which sculptor never chisel'd yet, nor painter painted, Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter'd, Invoking here and now I challenge for my song."

"Indifferently, 'mid public, private haunts, in solitude, Behind the mountain and the wood, Companion of the city's busiest streets, through the assemblage, It and its radiations constantly glide."

"How many travelers started from their homes and neer return'd! How much of genius boldly staked and lost for it! What countless stores of beauty, love, ventur'd for it! How all superbest deeds since Time began are traceable to it — and shall be to the end! How all heroic martyrdoms to it! How, justified by it, the horrors, evils, battles of the earth! How the bright fascinating lambent flames of it, in every age and land, have drawn men's eyes, Rich as a sunset on the Norway coast, the sky, the islands, and the cliffs, Or midnight's silent glowing northern lights unreachable. Haply God's riddle it, so vague and yet so certain, The soul for it, and all the visible universe for it, And heaven at last for it."

"Who has gone farthest? for I would go farther, And who has been just? for I would be the most just person of the earth, And who most cautious? for I would be more cautious, And who has been happiest? O I think it is I — I think no one was ever happier than I, And who has lavish'd all? for I lavish constantly the best I have... And who thinks the amplest thoughts? for I would surround those thoughts, And who has made hymns fit for the earth? for I am mad with devouring ecstasy to make joyous hymns for the whole earth."

"Ah poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats, Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me, (For what is my life or any man's life but a conflict with foes, the old, the incessant war?) You degradations, you tussle with passions and appetites, You smarts from dissatisfied friendships, (ah wounds the sharpest of all!) You toil of painful and choked articulations, you meannesses, You shallow tongue-talks at tables, (my tongue the shallowest of any;) You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you smother'd ennuis! Ah think not you finally triumph, my real self has yet to come forth, It shall yet march forth o'ermastering, till all lies beneath me, It shall yet stand up the soldier of ultimate victory."

"Of public opinion, Of a calm and cool fiat sooner or later, (how impassive! how certain and final!) Of the President with pale face asking secretly to himself, What will the people say at last? Of the frivolous Judge — of the corrupt Congressman, Governor, Mayor — of such as these standing helpless and exposed, Of the mumbling and screaming priest, (soon, soon deserted,) Of the lessening year by year of venerableness, and of the dicta of officers, statutes, pulpits, schools, Of the rising forever taller and stronger and broader of the intuitions of men and women, and of Self-esteem and Personality; Of the true New World — of the Democracies resplendent en-masse, Of the conformity of politics, armies, navies, to them, Of the shining sun by them — of the inherent light, greater than the rest, Of the envelopment of all by them, and the effusion of all from them."

"They shall arise in the States, They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness, They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos, They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive, They shall be complete women and men, their pose brawny and supple, their drink water, their blood clean and clear..."

"Strong and sweet shall their tongues be, poems and materials of poems shall come from their lives, they shall be makers and finders, Of them and of their works shall emerge divine conveyers, to convey gospels, Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey'd in gospels, trees, animals, waters, shall be convey'd, Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be convey'd."

"Weave in, weave in, my hardy life, Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns to come, Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses, sight weave in, Weave lasting sure, weave day and night the wet, the warp, incessant weave, tire not, (We know not what the use O life, nor know the aim, the end, nor really aught we know, But know the work, the need goes on and shall go on, the death-envelop'd march of peace as well as war goes on,) For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to weave, We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave."

"As sitting in dark days, Lone, sulky, through the time's thick murk looking in vain for light, for hope, From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof, (The sun there at the centre though conceal'd, Electric life forever at the centre,) Breaks forth a lightning flash."

"Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields, Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen, Onward I sped at the time — but now of their forms at night, I dream, I dream, I dream."

"I too announce solid things, Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing, Like a grand procession to music of distant bugles pouring, triumphantly moving, and grander heaving in sight, They stand for realities — all is as it should be."

"Then my realities; What else is so real as mine? Libertad and the divine average, freedom to every slave on the face of the earth, The rapt promises and lumine of seers, the spiritual world, these centuries-lasting songs, And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements of any."

"This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, Night, sleep, death and the stars."

"O soul, we have positively appear'd — that is enough."

"I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions, I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken, I see the landmarks of European kings removed, I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give way;) Never were such sharp questions ask'd as this day, Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God, Lo, how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest!"

"Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the globe? Is humanity forming en-masse? for lo, tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim, The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war, No one knows what will happen next, such portents fill the days and nights; Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to pierce it, is full of phantoms, Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me, This incredible rush and heat, this strange ecstatic fever of dreams O years! Your dreams O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not whether I sleep or wake;) The perform'd America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me, The unperform'd, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon me."

"Phantoms of countless lost, Invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions, Follow me ever — desert me not while I live."

"Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone, But love is not over — and what love, O comrades!"

"Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love, Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers, Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride. Perfume all — make all wholesome, Make these ashes to nourish and blossom, O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry."

"How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity, How few see the arrived models, the athletes, the Western States, or see freedom or spirituality, or hold any faith in results, (But I see the athletes, and I see the results of the war glorious and inevitable, and they again leading to other results.)"

"Of this Union welded in blood, of the solemn price paid, of the unnamed lost ever present in my mind;"

"Open mouth of my soul uttering gladness, Eyes of my soul seeing perfection, Natural life of me faithfully praising things, Corroborating forever the triumph of things."

"Illustrious every one! Illustrious what we name space, sphere of unnumber'd spirits, Illustrious the mystery of motion in all beings, even the tiniest insect, Illustrious the attribute of speech, the senses, the body, Illustrious the passing light — illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the western sky, Illustrious whatever I see or hear or touch, to the last."

"Good in all, In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals, In the annual return of the seasons, In the hilarity of youth, In the strength and flush of manhood, In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age, In the superb vistas of death."

"Wonderful to depart! Wonderful to be here! The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood! To breathe the air, how delicious! To speak — to walk — to seize something by the hand! To prepare for sleep, for bed, to look on my rose-color'd flesh! To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large! To be this incredible God I am! To have gone forth among other Gods, these men and women I love."

"Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around! How the clouds pass silently overhead! How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and on! How the water sports and sings! (surely it is alive!) How the trees rise and stand up, with strong trunks, with branches and leaves! (Surely there is something more in each of the trees, some living soul.)"

"O amazement of things — even the least particle! O spirituality of things!"

"I too carol the sun, usher'd or at noon, or as now, setting, I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth and of all the growths of the earth, I too have felt the resistless call of myself."

"As I roam'd the streets of inland Chicago, whatever streets I have roam'd, Or cities or silent woods, or even amid the sights of war, Wherever I have been I have charged myself with contentment and triumph."

"I say Nature continues, glory continues, I praise with electric voice, For I do not see one imperfection in the universe, And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe."

"O setting sun! though the time has come, I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration."

"To conclude, I announce what comes after me."

"When America does what was promis'd, When through these States walk a hundred millions of superb persons, When the rest part away for superb persons and contribute to them, When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America, Then to me and mine our due fruition."

"I have sung the body and the soul, war and peace have I sung, and the songs of life and death, And the songs of birth, and shown that there are many births."

"I have offer'd my style to every one, I have journey'd with confident step; While my pleasure is yet at the full I whisper So long! And take the young woman's hand and the young man's hand for the last time."

"I announce natural persons to arise, I announce justice triumphant, I announce uncompromising liberty and equality, I announce the justification of candor and the justification of pride."

"I announce the Union more and more compact, indissoluble, I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous politics of the earth insignificant."

"I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully arm'd."

"I foresee too much, it means more than I thought, It appears to me I am dying."

"Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring, To ages and ages yet the growth of the seed leaving, To troops out of the war arising, they the tasks I have set promulging, To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing, their affection me more clearly explaining, To young men my problems offering — no dallier I — I the muscle of their brains trying, So I pass, a little time vocal, visible, contrary, Afterward a melodious echo, passionately bent for, (death making me really undying,) The best of me then when no longer visible, for toward that I have been incessantly preparing."

"My songs cease, I abandon them, From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally solely to you. Camerado, this is no book, Who touches this touches a man, (Is it night? are we here together alone?) It is I you hold and who holds you, I spring from the pages into your arms — decease calls me forth."

"I feel like one who has done work for the day to retire awhile, I receive now again of my many translations, from my avataras ascending, while others doubtless await me, An unknown sphere more real than I dream'd, more direct, darts awakening rays about me, So long! Remember my words, I may again return, I love you, I depart from materials, I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead."

"My city's fit and noble name resumed, Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning, A rocky founded island — shores where ever gayly dash the coming, going, hurrying sea waves."

"The tossing waves, the foam, the ships in the distance, The wild unrest, the snowy, curling caps — that inbound urge and urge of waves, Seeking the shores forever."

"To those who've fail'd, in aspiration vast, To unnam'd soldiers fallen in front on the lead, To calm, devoted engineers — to over-ardent travelers — to pilots on their ships, To many a lofty song and picture without recognition — I'd rear laurel-cover'd monument, High, high above the rest — To all cut off before their time, Possess'd by some strange spirit of fire, Quench'd by an early death."

"Brave, brave were the soldiers (high named to-day) who lived through the fight; But the bravest press'd to the front and fell, unnamed, unknown."

"As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree, Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all! The brooding and blissful halcyon days!"

"Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost, No birth, identity, form — no object of the world. Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing; Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain. Ample are time and space — ample the fields of Nature."

"Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man; (Have former armies fail'd? then we send fresh armies — and fresh again;)"

"Small the theme of my Chant, yet the greatest — namely, One's-Self — a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing."

"That coursing on, whate'er men's speculations, Amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies, Amid the bawling presentations new and old, The round earth's silent vital laws, facts, modes continue."

"I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain, Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea, Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether changed, and yet the same, I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe, And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn; And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin, and make pure and beautify it; (For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering, Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns.)"

"Have you learn'd lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learn'd great lessons from those who reject you, and brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt, or dispute the passage with you?"

"Good-bye my fancy — (I had a word to say, But 'tis not quite the time — The best of any man's word or say, Is when its proper place arrives — and for its meaning, I keep mine till the last.)"

"A vague mist hanging 'round half the pages: (Sometimes how strange and clear to the soul, That all these solid things are indeed but apparitions, concepts, non-realities.)"

"In every object, mountain, tree, and star — in every birth and life, As part of each — evolv'd from each — meaning, behind the ostent, A mystic cipher waits infolded."

"After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials, Accumulations, rous'd love and joy and thought, Hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories, myriads of readers, Coating, compassing, covering — after ages' and ages' encrustations, Then only may these songs reach fruition."

"When the full-grown poet came, Out spake pleased Nature (the round impassive globe, with all its shows of day and night,) saying, He is mine; But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unreconciled, Nay he is mine alone; — Then the full-grown poet stood between the two, and took each by the hand; And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly holding hands, Which he will never release until he reconciles the two, And wholly and joyously blends them."

"A voice from Death, solemn and strange, in all his sweep and power, With sudden, indescribable blow — towns drown'd — humanity by thousands slain, The vaunted work of thrift, goods, dwellings, forge, street, iron bridge, Dash'd pell-mell by the blow — yet usher'd life continuing on, (Amid the rest, amid the rushing, whirling, wild debris, A suffering woman saved — a baby safely born!)"

"Although I come and unannounc'd, in horror and in pang, In pouring flood and fire, and wholesale elemental crash, (this voice so solemn, strange,) I too a minister of Deity."

"E'en as I chant, lo! out of death, and out of ooze and slime, The blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy, help, love, From West and East, from South and North and over sea, Its hot-spurr'd hearts and hands humanity to human aid moves on; And from within a thought and lesson yet."

"Thou ever-darting Globe! through Space and Air! Thou waters that encompass us! Thou that in all the life and death of us, in action or in sleep! Thou laws invisible that permeate them and all, Thou that in all, and over all, and through and under all, incessant! Thou! thou! the vital, universal, giant force resistless, sleepless, calm, Holding Humanity as in thy open hand, as some ephemeral toy, How ill to e'er forget thee!"

"For I too have forgotten, (Wrapt in these little potencies of progress, politics, culture, wealth, inventions, civilization,) Have lost my recognition of your silent ever-swaying power, ye mighty, elemental throes, In which and upon which we float, and every one of us is buoy'd."

"Finally my children, to envelop each word, each part of the rest, Allah is all, all,all — immanent in every life and object, May-be at many and many-a-more removes — yet Allah, Allah, Allah is there."

"Would you sound below the restless ocean of the entire world? Would you know the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur of every life; The something never still'd — never entirely gone? the invisible need of every seed? "It is the central urge in every atom, (Often unconscious, often evil, downfallen,) To return to its divine source and origin, however distant, Latent the same in subject and in object, without one exception."

"Not to exclude or demarcate, or pick out evils from their formidable masses (even to expose them,) But add, fuse, complete, extend — and celebrate the immortal and the good. Haughty this song, its words and scope, To span vast realms of space and time, Evolution — the cumulative — growths and generations. Begun in ripen'd youth and steadily pursued, Wandering, peering, dallying with all — war, peace, day and night absorbing, Never even for one brief hour abandoning my task, I end it here in sickness, poverty, and old age."

"I sing of life, yet mind me well of death..."

"After the cycles, poems, singers, plays, Vaunted Ionia's, India's — Homer, Shakspere — the long, long times' thick dotted roads, areas, The shining clusters and the Milky Ways of stars — Nature's pulses reap'd, All retrospective passions, heroes, war, love, adoration, All ages' plummets dropt to their utmost depths, All human lives, throats, wishes, brains — all experiences' utterance; After the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands, Still something not yet told in poesy's voice or print — something lacking, (Who knows? the best yet unexpress'd and lacking.)"

"Grand is the seen, the light, to me — grand are the sky and stars, Grand is the earth, and grand are lasting time and space, And grand their laws, so multiform, puzzling, evolutionary; But grander far the unseen soul of me, comprehending, endowing all those, Lighting the light, the sky and stars, delving the earth, sailing the sea, (What were all those, indeed, without thee, unseen soul? of what amount without thee?) More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul! More multiform far — more lasting thou than they."

"Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well, Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, in every square or cubic inch, Germinal, exquisite, in delicate lace, microscopic, unborn, Like babes in wombs, latent, folded, compact, sleeping; Billions of billions, and trillions of trillions of them waiting, (On earth and in the sea — the universe — the stars there in the heavens,) Urging slowly, surely forward, forming endless, And waiting ever more, forever more behind."

"Good-bye my Fancy! Farewell dear mate, dear love! I'm going away, I know not where, Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again, So Good-bye my Fancy."

"Yet let me not be too hasty, Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter'd, become really blended into one; Then if we die we die together, (yes, we'll remain one,) If we go anywhere we'll go together to meet what happens, May-be we'll be better off and blither, and learn something, May-be it is yourself now really ushering me to the true songs, (who knows?) May-be it is you the mortal knob really undoing, turning — so now finally, Good-bye — and hail! my Fancy."

"I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "LEAVES OF GRASS." I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean. I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire. I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging…"

"Whitman’s masterpiece, his whole vision, is exactly about this: life as a quest for truth, love, beauty, goodness, and freedom; life as the art of becoming human through the cultivation of the human soul."

"Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past."

"What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. My words echo Thus, in your mind. But to what purpose Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves I do not know."

"Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children, Hidden excitedly, containing laughter. Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present."

"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time."

"Time past and time future Allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden, The moment in the arbour where the rain beat, The moment in the draughty church at smokefall Be remembered; involved with past and future. Only through time time is conquered."

"Words move, music moves Only in time; but that which is only living Can only die. Words, after speech, reach Into the silence."

"Or say that the end precedes the beginning, And the end and the beginning were always there Before the beginning and after the end. And all is always now. Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Will not stay still."

"Desire itself is movement Not in itself desirable; Love is itself unmoving, Only the cause and end of movement, Timeless, and undesiring Except in the aspect of time Caught in the form of limitation Between un-being and being."

"Sudden in a shaft of sunlight Even while the dust moves There rises the hidden laughter Of children in the foliage Quick now, here, now, always— Ridiculous the waste sad time Stretching before and after."

"In my beginning is my end."

"There is, it seems to us, At best, only a limited value In the knowledge derived from experience. The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies, For the pattern is new in every moment And every moment is a new and shocking Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm."

"Do not let me hear Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly, Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession, Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God. The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless."

"O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant, … And we all go with them, into the silent funeral, Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury."

"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing."

"You say I am repeating Something I have said before. I shall say it again. Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there, To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. In order to possess what you do not possess You must go by the way of dispossession. In order to arrive at what you are not You must go through the way in which you are not. And what you do not know is the only thing you know And what you own is what you do not own And where you are is where you are not."

"The dripping blood our only drink, The bloody flesh our only food: In spite of which we like to think That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood — Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good."

"Trying to use words, and every attempt Is a wholy new start, and a different kind of failure Because one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which One is no longer disposed to say it."

"And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate, With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling, Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer By strength and submission, has already been discovered Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope To emulate —but there is no competition— There is only the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."

"Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before and after, But a lifetime burning in every moment And not the lifetime of one man only But of old stones that cannot be deciphered."

"Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter. Old men ought to be explorers Here or there does not matter We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and the empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning."

"I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god —sullen, untamed and intractable, Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier; Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce; Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges."

"The river is within us, the sea is all about us"

"It tosses up our losses, the torn seine, The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar And the gear of foreign dead men."

"The sea has many voices, Many gods and many voices."

"It seems, as one becomes older, That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence— Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution, Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past."

"The moments of happiness — not the sense of well-being, Fruition, fulfilment, security or affecton, Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination — We had the experience but missed the meaning, And approach to the meaning restores the experience In a different form, beyond any meaning We can assign to happiness. I have said before That the past experience revived in the meaning Is not the experience of one life only But of many generations — not forgetting Something that is probably quite ineffable"

"Now, we come to discover that the moments of agony (Whether, or not, due to misunderstanding, Having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things, Is not in question) are likewise permanent With such permanence as time has. We appreciate this better In the agony of others, nearly experienced, Involving ourselves, than in our own. For our own past is covered by the currents of action, But the torment of others remains an experience Unqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition. People change, and smile: but the agony abides."

"Time the destroyer is time the preserver, Like the river with its cargo of dead negroes, cows and chicken coops, The bitter apple, and the bite in the apple. And the ragged rock in the restless waters, Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it; On a halcyon day it is merely a monument, In navigable weather it is always a seamark To lay a course by: but in the sombre season Or the sudden fury, is what it always was."

"You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure, That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here."

"Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past Into different lives, or into any future; You are not the same people who left that station Or who will arrive at any terminus, While the narrowing rails slide together behind you"

"Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging; You are not those who saw the harbour Receding, or those who will disembark. Here between the hither and the farther shore While time is withdrawn, consider the future And the past with an equal mind."

"At the moment which is not of action or inaction You can receive this: 'on whatever sphere of being The mind of a man may be intent At the time of death' — that is the one action (And the time of death is every moment) Which shall fructify in the lives of others: And do not think of the fruit of action. Fare forward."

"To apprehend The point of intersection of the timeless With time, is an occupation for the saint — No occupation either, but something given And taken, in a lifetime's death in love, Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender."

"For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts."

"The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation. Here the impossible union Of spheres of evidence is actual, Here the past and future Are conquered, and reconciled…"

"Right action is freedom From past and future also. For most of us, this is the aim Never here to be realised; Who are only undefeated Because we have gone on trying; We, content at the last If our temporal reversion nourish (Not too far from the yew-tree) The life of significant soil."

"If you came this way, Taking the route you would be likely to take From the place you would be likely to come from, If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness."

"And what you thought you came for Is only a shell, a husk of meaning From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled If at all. Either you had no purpose Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws, Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city— But this is the nearest, in place and time, Now and in England."

"If you came this way, Taking any route, starting from anywhere, At any time or at any season, It would always be the same: you would have to put off Sense and notion. You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity Or carry report. You are here to kneel Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more Than an order of words, the conscious occupation Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying. And what the dead had no speech for, when living, They can tell you, being dead: the communication Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living."

"Here, the intersection of the timeless moment Is England and nowhere. Never and always."

"I am not eager to rehearse My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten. These things have served their purpose: let them be. So with your own, and pray they be forgiven By others, as I pray you to forgive Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail. For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice."

"Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us To purify the dialect of the tribe And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight, Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort. First, the cold fricton of expiring sense Without enchantment, offering no promise But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit As body and soul begin to fall asunder. Second, the conscious impotence of rage At human folly, and the laceration Of laughter at what ceases to amuse. And last, the rending pain of re-enactment Of all that you have done, and been; the shame Of things ill done and done to others' harm Which once you took for exercise of virtue. Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains. From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire Where you must move in measure, like a dancer."

"History may be servitude, History may be freedom. See, now they vanish, The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them, To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern. Sin is Behovely, but All shall be well, and All manner of thing shall be well."

"We cannot revive old factions We cannot restore old policies Or follow an antique drum."

"Whatever we inherit from the fortunate We have taken from the defeated What they had to leave us — a symbol: A symbol perfected in death. And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well By the purification of the motive In the ground of our beseeching."

"The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error. The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre — To be redeemed from fire by fire."

"Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire."

"What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."

"Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, Every poem an epitaph. And any action Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start. We die with the dying: See, they depart, and we go with them."

"We are born with the dead: See, they return, and bring us with them. The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree Are of equal duration. A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments."

"So, while the light fails On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel History is now and England."

"With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time."

"Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea."

"Quick now, here, now, always — A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one."

"Hige sceal þē heardra, heorte þē cēnre, mōd sceal þē māre, þē ūre mægen lytlað."

"Promise was that I Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver; Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves, Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke."

"O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse Without all hope of day!"

"The sun to me is dark And silent as the moon, When she deserts the night, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave."

"To live a life half dead, a living death."

"Ran on embattled armies clad in iron, And, weaponless himself, Made arms ridiculous."

"Apt words have power to suage The tumors of a troubled mind."

"Wisest men Have erred, and by bad women been deceived."

"Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men; Unless there be who think not God at all."

"What boots it at one gate to make defense, And at another to let in the foe?"

"My race of glory run, and race of shame, And I shall shortly be with them at rest."

"But who is this, what thing of sea or land? Female of sex it seems, That so bedecked, ornate, and gay, Comes this way sailing Like a stately ship Of Tarsus, bound for th' isles Of Javan or Gadire, With all her bravery on, and tackle trim, Sails filled, and streamers waving, Courted by all the winds that hold them play; An amber scent of odorous perfume Her harbinger?"

"Dalila: In argument with men a woman ever Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause. Samson: For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath!"

"Fame, if not double-faced, is double-mouthed, And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds; On both his wings, one black, the other white, Bears greatest names in his wild airy flight."

"Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offense returning, to regain Love once possessed."

"Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end; Not wedlock-treachery."

"The way to know were not to see, but taste."

"Boast not of what thou would'st have done, but do What then thou would'st."

"He’s gone, and who knows how he may report Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?"

"For evil news rides post, while good news baits."

"Suspense in news is torture."

"But he, though blind of sight, Despised, and thought extinguished quite, With inward eyes illuminated, His fiery virtue roused From under ashes into sudden flame, And as an ev'ning dragon came, Assailant on the perched roosts And nests in order rang'd Of tame villatic fowl. So Virtue, given for lost, Depressed and overthrown, as seemed, Like that self-begotten bird In the Arabian woods embost, That no second knows nor third, And lay erewhile a holocaust, From out her ashy womb now teemed, Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most When most unactive deemed; And, though her body die, her fame survives, A secular bird, ages of lives."

"Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise, or blame, nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble."

"All is best, though we oft doubt, What the unsearchable dispose Of highest Wisdom brings about."

"Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet."

"Ver novum, ver jam canorurn, vere natus orbis est; Vere concordant amores, vere nubunt alites, Et nemus comam resolvit de maritis imbribus. Cras amorum copulatrix inter umbras arborum Inplicat casas virentes de flagello myrteo."

"Tunc liquore de superno spumeo et ponti globo, Cærulas inter catervas, inter et bipedes equos, Fecit undantem Dionen de maritis imbribus."

"Ipsa gemmis purpurantem pingit annum floribus, Ipsa surgentes papillas de Favoni spiritu Urget in toros tepentes; ipsa roris lucidi Noctis aura quem relinquit, spargit umentes aquas. Et micant lacrimæ trementes de caduco pondere."

"En, pudorem florulentæ prodiderunt purpuræ: Umor ille quern serenis astra rorant noctibus Mane virgineas papillas solvit umenti peplo. Ipsa jussit mane ut udas virgines nubant rosæ; Fusa Paphies de cruore deque Amoris osculis Deque gemmis deque flammis deque solis purpuris, Cras ruborem qui latebat veste tectus ignea Unico marita nodo non pudebit solvere."

"Ipsa nymphas diva luco jussit ire myrteo: It puer comes puellis. Nee tamen credi potest Esse Amorem feriatum, si sagittas vexerit. Ite, nymphæ, posuit arma, feriatus est Amor; Jussus est inermis ire, nudus ire jussus est, Neu quid arcu, neu sagitta, neu quid igne Iæderet; Sed tamen nymphse cavete, quod Cupido pulcher est; Est in armis totus idem quando nudus est Amor!"

"Una res est quam rogamus: cede, virgo Delia, Ut nemus sit incruentum de ferinis stragibus. Ipsa vellet ut venires, si deceret virginem: Jam tribus choros videres feriatos noctibus Congreges inter catervas ire per saltus tuos, Floreas inter coronas, myrteas inter casas: Nee Ceres nee Bacchus absunt, nee poetarum Deus; De tenente tota nox est pervigilia canticis: Regnet in silvis Dione; tu recede, Delia."

"Jussit Hyblæis tribunal stare diva floribus; Præses ipsa jura dicit, adsederunt Gratiæ. Hybla, totos funde floras quidquid annus adtulit; Hybla, florum rumpe vestem quantus Ætnæ campus est. Ruris hic erunt puellæ, vel puellæ montium, Quæque silvas, quæque lucos, quæque fontes incolunt: Jussit omnes adsidere mater alitis dei, Jussit et nudo puellas nil Amori credere."

"Et rigentibus virentes ducit umbras floribus: Cras erit quum primus Æther copulavit nuptias, Et pater totum creavit vernis annum nubibus, In sinum maritus imber fluxit almæ conjugis, Unde fetus mixtus omnes aleret magno corpore. Ipsa venas atque mentem permeanti spiritu Intus occultis gubernat procreatrix viribus, Perque coelum, perque terras, perque pontum subditum Pervium sui tenorem seminali tramite Inbuit, jussitque mundum nosse nascendi vias."

"Ipsa Trojanos nepotes in Latinos transtulit, Ipsa Laurentem puellam conjugem nato dedit; Moxque Marti de sacello dat pudicam virginem; Romuleas ipsa fecit cum Sabinis nuptias, Unde Ramnes et Quirites proque prole posterum Romuli matrem crearet et nepotem Cæsarem."

"Rura fecundat voluptas: rura Venerem sentiunt: Ipse Amor puer Dionse rure natus dicitur. Hunc ager, cum parturiret ipsa, suscepit sinu: Ipsa florum delicatis educavit osculis."

"Ecce jam super genestas explicant tauri latus, Quisque tutus quo tenetur conjugali foedere: Subter umbras cum maritis ecce balantum greges; Et canoras non tacere diva jussit alites. Jam loquaces ore rauco stagna cycni perstrepunt; Adsonat Terei puella subter umbram populi, Ut putes motus amoris ore dici musico, Et neges queri sororem de marito barbaro. Ilia cantat, nos tacemus. Quando ver venit meum? Quando fiam uti chelidon, ut tacere desinam? Perdidi Musam tacendo, nec me Apollo respicit; Sic Amyclas, cum tacerent, perdidit silentium."

"Thomas Parnell, Poems on Several Occasions (1722)"

"Anonymous, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 53, no. 332 (June 1843)"

"Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems (1912) — also the source of the Latin text used above"

"David Camden, "The Night Watch of Venus", forumromanum.org (c. 24 July 2003)"

"Maxwelton's braes are bonnie Where early fa's the dew And 'twas there that Annie Laurie Gave me her promise true. Gave me her promise true Which ne'er forgot will be And for bonnie Annie Laurie I'd lay me doon and dee."

"I wish I were where Helen lies; Night and day on me she cries; Oh that I were where Helen lies On fair Kirconnell lea! Curst be the heart that thought the thought, And curst the hand that fired the shot, When in my arms burd Helen dropt, And died to succour me!"

"Goodman, you've spoken the foremost word! Get up, and bar the door."

"What d'ye leave to your true-love, Lord Randal, my son? What d'ye leave to your true-love, my handsome young man?" "I leave her hell and fire; mother mak my bed soon, For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down."

"When captains courageous, whom death could not daunt"

"The first line that Sir Patrick read, A loud laugh laughed he; The next line that Sir Patrick read, The tear blinded his ee."

"Mony a one for him makes mane, But nane sall ken where he is gane; O'er his white banes, when they are bare, The wind sall blaw for evermair."

"But had I wist, before I kist, That love had been sae ill to win, I had lock'd my heart in a case o' gowd, And pinn'd it wi' a siller pin. And O! if my young babe were born, And set upon the nurse's knee; And I mysel were dead and gane, And the green grass growing over me!"

"Adam lay ibounden, Bounden in a bond; Four thousand winter Thoght he not too long; And all was for an appil, An appil that he tok."

"Nis no fur so hot in helle All to mon That loveth derne and dar nout telle Whet him is on."

"An hendy hap ichabbe y-hent, Ichote from hevene it is me sent; From alle wymmen my love is lent Ant lyht on Alisoun."

"Hand by hand we shule us take, And joye and blisse shule we make; For the devel of helle man hath forsake, And Godes Son is maked our make. A child is boren amonges man, And in that child was no wam: That child is God, that child is man, And in that child oure lif bigan."

"Icham of Irlaunde Ant of the holy londe Of Irlande. Gode sire, pray ich the, For of saynte charite, Come ant daunce wyt me In Irlaunde."

"For hire love in slep y slake, For hire love al nyht ich wake, For hire love mournynge y make More then eny mon. Blou northerne wynd! Send thou me my suetyng! Blou northerne wynd! blou, blou, blou!"

"She sente me the cherye Withouten ony ston; And so she dede the dove Withouten ony bon; She sente me the brer Withouten ony rinde; She bad me love my lemman Withoute longing."

"I sing of a maiden That is makeles; King of all kings To her son she ches."

"Wymmen waxeth wounder proude So wel hit wol hem seme, Yef me shal wonte wille of on, This wunne weole y wole forgon Ant wyht in wode be fleme."

"Louerd, þu clepedest me, An ich nagt ne ansuarede þe, Bute wordes scloe and sclepie: "Þole yet! þole a litel!" Bute "yiet" and "yiet" was endelis, And "þole a litel" a long wey is."

"Middel-erd for mon wes mad."

"Mirie it is while sumer ilast With fugheles song, Oc nu necheth windes blast And weder strong. Ej! Ej! what this nicht is long, And ich with wel michel wrong Soregh and murne and fast."

"Of on that is so fayr and bright Velut maris stella, Brighter than the day is light, Parens et puella: Ic crie to the, thou see to me, Levedy, preye thi Sone for me, Tam pia, That ic mote come to thee, Maria."

"Sumer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu! Groweth sed, and bloweth med, And springth the wude nu– Sing cuccu!"

"Were beth they biforen vs weren, Houndes ladden and hauekes beren And hadden feld and wode?"

"When Adam dalf and Eve span, go spire – if thou may spede – Where was than the pride of man that now marres his mede?"

"Wynter wakeneth al my care, Nou this leves waxeth bare; Ofte I sike ant mourne sare When hit cometh in my thoht Of this worldes joie, hou hit goth al to noht."

"Every white will have its blacke, And every sweet its soure."

"Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone, Wi’ the auld moon in hir arme."

"He that had neyther been kith nor kin Might have seen a full fayre sight."

"Have you not heard these many years ago Jeptha was judge of Israel? He had one only daughter and no mo, The which he loved passing well; And as by lott, God wot, It so came to pass, As God’s will was."

"A Robyn, Jolly Robyn, Tell me how thy leman does."

"Where gripinge grefes the hart wounde, And dolefulle dumps the mynde oppresse, There music with her silver sound With spede is wont to send redresse."

"The blinded boy that shootes so trim, From heaven downe did hie."

"“What is thy name, faire maid?” quoth he. "Penelophon, O King!" quoth she."

"We ’ll shine in more substantial honours, And to be noble we ’ll be good."

"And when with envy Time, transported, Shall think to rob us of our joys, You ’ll in your girls again be courted, And I ’ll go wooing in my boys."

"King Stephen was a worthy peere, His breeches cost him but a croune; e held them sixpence all too deere, Therefore he call’d the taylor loune. He was a wight of high renowne, And those but of a low degree; Itt ’s pride that putts the countrye doune, Then take thine old cloake about thee."

"A poore soule sat sighing under a sycamore tree; Oh willow, willow, willow! With his hand on his bosom, his head on his knee, Oh willow, willow, willow!"

"When Arthur first in court began, And was approved king."

"Shall I bid her goe? What if I doe? Shall I bid her goe and spare not? Oh no, no, no! I dare not."

"But in vayne shee did conjure him To depart her presence soe; Having a thousand tongues to allure him, And but one to bid him goe."

"And how should I know your true love From many another one? Oh, by his cockle hat and staff, And by his sandal shoone."

"O Lady, he is dead and gone! Lady, he's dead and gone! And at his head a green grass turfe, And at his heels a stone."

"Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never."

"Weep no more, lady, weep no more, Thy sorrowe is in vaine; For violets pluckt, the sweetest showers Will ne’er make grow againe."

"He that would not when he might, He shall not when he wolda."

"Fortune rota volvitur: descendo minoratus; alter in altum tollitur; nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice caveat ruinam!"

"O Fortuna, velut luna statu variabilis."

"Sors immanis et inanis, rota tu volubilis, status malus, vana salus semper dissolubilis, obumbrata et velata michi quoque niteris; nunc per ludum dorsum nudum fero tui sceleris."

"Fas et nefas ambulant pene passu pari."

"Hei, quam felix transitus amoris ad soporem, sed suavior regressus ad amorem!"

"Olim lacus colueram, olim pulcher exstiteram, dum cygnus ego fueram. miser! miser! modo niger et ustus fortiter!"

"Respondit Caritas; "homo, quid dubitas, quid me sollicitas? non sum quod usitas nec in euro nec in austro, nec in foro nec in claustro, nec in bysso nec in cuculla, nec in bello nec in bulla. de Iericho sum veniens, ploro cum sauciato, quem duplex Levi transiens non astitit grabato.""

"Tempus est iocundum, o virgines! modo congaudete, vos iuvenes! o! o! totus floreo! Iam amore virginali totus ardeo; novus, novus amor est, quo pereo!"

"Tempore brumali vir patiens, animo vernali lasciviens."

"Potatores exquisiti, licet sitis sine siti, et bibatis expediti et scyphorum inobliti."

"The wise speak of what is One in many ways."

"May we not anger you, O God, in our worship By praise that is unworthy or by scanty tribute."

"Your ancient home, your auspicious friendship, O Heroes, your wealth is on the banks of the Jahnavi."

"Here did our human fathers take their places, fain to fulfil the sacred Law of worship."

"Do adore with salutations the deva asura[Rudra]."

"Brbu hath set himself above the Panis, o'er their highest head, Like the wide bush on Ganga's bank."

"Sarasvati, pure in her course from the mountains to the sea."

"We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered. Now what may foeman's malice do to harm us? What, O Immortal, mortal man's deception?"

"The people deck him like a docile king of elephants."

"Favour ye this my laud, O Gangā, Yamunā, O Sutudri, Paruṣṇī and Sarasvatī: With Asikni, Vitasta, O Marudvrdha, O Ārjīkīya with Susoma hear my call. First with Trstama thou art eager to flow forth, with Rasā, and Susartu, and with Svetya here, With Kubha; and with these, Sindhu and Mehatnu, thou seekest in thy course Krumu and Gomati."

"Pischel and Geldner have done well to point out that these poems are not the productions of ignorant peasants, but of a highly cultured professional class, encouraged by the gifts of kings and the applause of courts (Einleitung p.xxiv). Just the same may be said of the Homeric bards and of those of Arthur‘s court [...]"

"It is impossible to read into the story of the Angirases, Indra and Sarama, the cave of the Panis and the conquest of the Dawn, the Sun and the Cows an account of a political and military struggle between Aryan invaders and Dravidian cave-dwellers. It is a struggle between the seekers of Light and the powers of Darkness; the cows are the illuminations of the Sun and the Dawn, they cannot be physical cows; the wide fear-free field of the Cows won by Indra for the Aryans is the wide world of Swar, the world of the solar Illumination, the threefold luminous regions of Heaven (Aurobindo [1914–20] 1998: 223)"

"We have in the Rig-veda,—the true and only Veda in the estimation of European scholars,—a body of sacrificial hymns couched in a very ancient language which presents a number of almost insoluble difficulties. ... The scholar in dealing with his text is obliged to substitute for interpretation a process almost of fabrication. We feel that he is not so much revealing the sense as hammering and forging rebellious material into some sort of shape and consistency."

"“the one considerable document that remains to us from the early period of human thought… when the spiritual and psychological knowledge of the race was concealed, for reasons now difficult to determine, in a veil of concrete and material figures and symbols which protected the sense from the profane and revealed it to the initiated. One of the leading principles of the mystics was the sacredness and secrecy of self-knowledge and the true knowledge of the Gods… Hence… (the mystics) clothed their language in words and images which had, equally, a spiritual sense for the elect, and a concrete sense for the mass of ordinary worshippers.”"

"“The ritual system recognised by SAyaNa may, in its, externalities, stand; the naturalistic sense discovered by European scholarship may, in its general conception, be accepted; but behind them there is always the true and still hidden secret of the Veda - the secret words, niNyA vacAMsi, which were spoken for the purified in soul and the awakened in knowledge. To disengage this less obvious but more important sense by fixing the import of Vedic terms, the sense of Vedic symbols, and the psychological function of the Gods is thus a difficult but a necessary task.”"

"Max Muller's dating of the Veda illustrates the arbitrariness involved in the production of theories that are then propagated as "facts" in generations of schoolbooks. Muller, as I have noted, was fully aware of the arbitrary nature of his calculations (which, as Goldstucker pointed out, were based on a "ghost story" written in the twelfth century C.E.): "I ... have repeatedly dwelt on the hypothetical character of the dates" (1892, xiv). As Whitney noted, however: "We have already more than once seen it stated that 'Muller has ascertained the date of the Vedas to be 1200-1000 B.C.'" ([1874] 1987, 78). Winternitz also objected that "it became a habit . . . to say that Max Muller had proved 1200-1000 B.C. as the date of the Rg Veda. . . . Strange to say it has been quite forgotten on what a precarious footing [this opinion] stood" ([1907] 1962, 256)."

"In the West, it is said that the whole tradition of philosophical thought is but a series of footnotes on the Greek philosopher Plato. Here, you could say that all Indian thought is but a series of footnotes on Dīrghatamas."

"“On the whole ... the language of the first nine Mandalas must be regarded as homogeneous, inspite of traces of previous dialectal differences... With the tenth Mandala it is a different story. The language here has definitely changed.”"

"Thus, the whole foundation of Mueller's date [for the Rigveda] rests on the authority of Somadeva, the author of "an Ocean of (or rather for) the River of Stories" who narrated his tales in the twelfth century after Christ. Somadeva, I am satisfied, would not be a little surprised to learn that 'a European point of view" raises a "ghost story" of his to the dignity of an historical document.""

"Goldstücker ([I860] 1965) objected that "neither is there a single reason to account for his allotting 200 years to the first of his periods, nor for his doubling this amount of time in the case of the Sutra period" (80). He points out that, ultimately, "the whole foundation of Muller's date rests on the authority of Somadeva . . . [who] narrated his tales in the twelfth century after Christ [and] would not be a little surprised to learn that 'a European point of view" raises a 'ghost story' of his to the dignity of an historical document" (91)."

"“As in its original language, we see the roots and shoots of the languages of Greek and Latin, of Celt, Teuton and Slavonian, so the deities, the myths and the religious beliefs and practices of the Veda throw a flood of light upon the religions of all European countries before the introduction of Christianity. As the science of comparative philology could hardly have existed without the study of Sanskrit, so the comparative history of the religions of the world would have been impossible without the study of the Veda.”"

"The Rigveda “reflects not so much a wandering life…. as a life stable and fixed, a life of halls and cities, and shows sacrificial cases in such detail as to lead one to suppose that the hymnists were not on the tramp, but were comfortable well-fed priests” [...] If the first home of the Aryans can be determined at all by the conditions topographical and meteorological, described in their early hymns, then decidedly the Punjab was not that home. For here there are neither mountains nor monsoon storms to burst, yet storm and mountain belong to the very marrow of the Rigveda. ...[it is] ―a district [...] where monsoon storms and mountain scenery are found, that district, namely, which lies South of Umballa (or Ambālā). It is here, in my opinion, that the Rigveda, taken as a whole, was composed. In every particular, this locality fulfils the physical conditions under which the composition of the hymns was possible, and what is of paramount importance, is the first district east of the Indus that does so."

"[The Vedic Gods] “are nearer to the physical phenomena which they represent, than the gods of any other Indo-European mythology”."

"Max Müller, Weber, Muir, and others held that the Punjab was the main scene of the activity of the Rgveda, whereas the more recent view put forth by Hopkins and Keith is that it was composed in the country round the SarasvatI river south of modem AmbAla.”"

"I need hardly say that I agree with almost every word of my critics. I have repeatedly dwelt on the entirely hypothetical character of the dates I ventured to assign to the first three periods of Vedic literature. All I have claimed for them has been that they are minimum dates"

"It is quite clear that we cannot fix a terminum a quo, whether the Vedic hymns were composed 1000 or 2000 or 3000 years BC, no power on earth will ever determine"

"The translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3000 years."

"These dates Mueller later insisted were minimum dates only, , and latterly there has been a sort of tacit agreement.... to date the composition of the Rigveda somewhere about 1400-1500 BC, but without any absolutely conclusive evidence."

"That age [of the Rigveda] is not known with even an approximate degree of certainty."

"There was nothing in the Rgveda to look for a primitive or primarily nomadic society [sic]. . . . Chariots and wagons and boats which occur so frequently in the Rgveda do not agree well with nomadism. Movement of cars presupposes existence of roads and defined routes, which in turn presuppose settlements and regular traffic from point to point. Boats and ships are not floating logs. They presuppose ferry ghats and fixed destinations. . . , there was much in the Rgveda that defied explanation. . . . But instead of reconciling the discordant features, scholars either ignored them or distorted the facts and features. (Singh 1995, 8)"

"If we can dig beneath the assumptions about meaning that overlay the text... we shall uncover a very different Rigveda from the one that we have come to accept."

"There is nothing in any of the 1,028 poems that make up the collection to suggest that their authors were incomers to the area that they describe in their poems. Rather the opposite."

"All attempts to date the Vedic literature on linguistic grounds have failed miserably for the simple reason that (a) the conclusions of comparative philology are often speculative and (b) no one has yet suceeded in showing how much change should take place in a language in a given period."

"Of the Vedic poetic art Watkins writes: “The language of India from its earliest documentation in the Rigveda has raised the art of the phonetic figure to what many would consider its highest form”."

"Awake, my St John! Leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings. Let us, since life can little more supply Than just to look about us, and to die, Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! But not without a plan."

"Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield."

"Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise: Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; But vindicate the ways of God to man."

"Say first, of God above or man below, What can we reason but from what we know?"

"Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind? First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less!"

"'T is but a part we see, and not a whole."

"Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescrib'd, their present state."

"Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood."

"Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world."

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest. The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come."

"Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His soul proud Science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way; Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n, Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heav'n."

"But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company."

"In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies; All quit their spere, and rush into the skies! Pride still is aiming at the blessed abodes, Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods. Aspiring to be Gods if Angels fell, Aspiring to be Angels men rebel."

"Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies."

"Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason,—man is not a fly."

"Die of a rose in aromatic pain."

"The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line."

"Remembrance and reflection how allied! What thin partitions sense from thought divide!"

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul."

"Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees."

"As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns As the rapt seraph that adores and burns. To Him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all!"

"Our proper bliss depends on what we blame."

"All nature is but art unknown to thee, All chance, direction which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good; And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right."

"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man."

"Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the skeptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reasn'ing but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much."

"Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused, or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled; The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!"

"Trace science then, with modesty thy guide."

"Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot."

"In lazy apathy let stoics boast Their virtue fix'd: 'tis fix'd as in a frost; Contracted all, retiring to the breast; But strength of mind is exercise, not rest."

"On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale."

"And hence one master passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest."

"The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength."

"Extremes in nature equal ends produce; In man they join to some mysterious use."

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

"Ask where's the North? At York 'tis on the Tweed; In Scotland at the Orcades; and there, At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where."

"Virtuous and vicious every man must be,— Few in the extreme, but all in the degree."

"The learned is happy Nature to explore, The fool is happy that he knows no more; The rich is happy in the plenty giv'n, The poor contents him with the care of Heav'n."

"Hope travels thro', nor quits us when we die."

"Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite: Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer books are the toys of age! Pleased with this bauble still, as that before; Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er."

"While man exclaims, “See all things for my use!” “See man for mine!” replies a pamper'd goose."

"Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale."

"In vain thy Reason finer webs shall draw, Entangle justice in her net of law, And right, too rigid, harden into wrong, Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong."

"The enormous faith of many made for one."

"Force first made Conquest, and that conquest, Law."

"For forms of government let fools contest; Whate'er is best administered is best: For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right. In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity."

"Thus God and Nature linked the general frame, And bade self-love and social be the same."

"Oh, happiness! Our being’s end and aim! Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate’er thy name: That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die, Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, O’erlooked, seen double, by the fool, and wise. Plant of celestial seed! if dropped below, Say, in what mortal soil thou deign’st to grow? Fair opening to some Court’s propitious shine, Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine? Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield, Or reaped in iron harvests of the field? Where grows? — where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil: Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere, ’Tis nowhere to be found, or everywhere; ’Tis never to be bought, but always free, And fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee."

"Order is Heaven's first law."

"Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of Sense, Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence. But Health consists with Temperance alone, And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own."

"The soul's calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy."

"Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honour lies."

"Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunella."

"What can ennoble sots or slaves or cowards? Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards."

"What's Fame? a fancied life in others' breath, A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death."

"A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod; An honest man's the noblest work of God."

"Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart. One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas; And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels. In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? 'T is but to know how little can be known; To see all others' faults, and feel our own."

"Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? All fear, none aid you, and few understand."

"If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind! Or ravish'd with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame!"

"Know then this truth (enough for man to know), — Virtue alone is happiness below."

"Never elated when one man 's oppress'd; Never dejected while another 's bless'd."

"Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God."

"Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer From grave to gay, from lively to severe."

"Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, Pursue the triumph and partake the gale?"

"Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend."

"That virtue only makes our bliss below, And all our knowledge is ourselves to know."

"The Essay on Man was a work of great labour and long consideration, but certainly not the happiest of Pope's performances. The subject is perhaps not very proper for poetry, and the poet was not sufficiently master of his subject; metaphysical morality was to him a new study, he was proud of his acquisitions, and, supposing himself master of great secrets, was in haste to teach what he had not learned."

"Never were penury of knowledge and vulgarity of sentiment so happily disguised."

"The fate of all extremes is such, Men may read, as well as books, too much. To observations which ourselves we make, We grow more partial for th' observer's sake."

"That each from other differs, first confess; Next, that he varies from himself no less."

"Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment you detect."

"In vain sedate reflections we would make When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take."

"Not always actions show the man: we find Who does a kindness is not therefore kind."

"Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,— His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies."

"'Tis from high life high characters are drawn; A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn."

"'Tis education forms the common mind: Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."

"Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times."

""Odious! in woollen! 't would a saint provoke", Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke."

"And you, brave Cobham! to the latest breath Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death."

"Nothing so true as what you once let fall, "Most women have no characters at all"."

"Whether the charmer sinner it or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it."

"Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute."

"Fine by defect, and delicately weak."

"Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride."

"Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please; With too much spirit to be e'er at ease; With too much quickness ever to be taught; With too much thinking to have common thought. You purchase pain with all that joy can give, And die of nothing but a rage to live."

"Atossa, cursed with every granted prayer, Childless with all her children, wants an heir; To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store, Or wanders heaven-directed to the poor."

""With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part, Say, what can Chloe want?" — She wants a heart."

"Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, Content to dwell in decencies forever."

"In men, we various ruling passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind; Those, only fixed, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway."

"Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman is at heart a rake."

"See how the world its veterans rewards! A youth of frolics, an old age of cards."

"Oh, blest with temper whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day!"

"She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting, sways, Yet has her humor most, when she obeys."

"And mistress of herself though china fall."

"And yet, believe me, good as well as ill, Woman's at best a contradiction still."

"Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?"

"Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly."

"P. What riches give us let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes. B. What more? P. Meat, fine clothes, and fire."

"But thousands die, without this or that, Die, and endow a college, or a cat."

"The ruling passion, be it what it will, The ruling passion conquers reason still."

"Extremes in Nature equal good produce; Extremes in man concur to general use."

"Rise, honest muse! and sing The Man of Ross."

"Ye little stars! hide your diminish'd rays."

"Who builds a church to God and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name."

"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung."

"Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies."

"But Satan now is wiser than of yore, And tempts by making rich, not making poor."

"Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven, And though no science, fairly worth the seven."

"Tis use alone that sanctifies expense, And splendor borrows all her rays from sense."

"To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite, Who never mentions hell to ears polite."

"Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honor clear; Who broke no promise, served no private end, Who gained no title, and who lost no friend."

"Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss."

"'Tis with our judgements as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own."

"Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well."

"Some are bewildered in the maze of schools, And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools."

"Nature to all things fix'd the Limits fit, And wisely curb'd proud Man's pretending Wit: As on the Land while here the Ocean gains, In other Parts it leaves wide sandy Plains; Thus in the Soul while Memory prevails, The solid Pow'r of Understanding fails; Where Beams of warm Imagination play, The Memory's soft Figures melt away."

"One science only will one genius fit: So vast is art, so narrow human wit."

"Wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife."

"From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art."

"Some Figures monstrous and mis-shap'd appear, Consider'd singly, or beheld too near, Which, but proportion'd to their Light, or Place, Due Distance reconciles to Form and Grace."

"A prudent Chief not always must display His Pow'rs in equal Ranks, and fair Array, But with th' Occasion and the Place comply, Conceal his Force, nay seem sometimes to Fly. Those oft are Stratagems which Errors seem, Nor is it Homer Nods, but We that Dream."

"Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind; What the weak head with strongest bias rules, — Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools."

"Trust not your self; but your Defects to know, Make use of ev'ry Friend — and ev'ry Foe."

"A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain, And drinking largely sobers us again."

"Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!"

"'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all."

"Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be."

"True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."

"Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found."

"Such labored nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearned, and make the learned smile."

"In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold, Alike fantastic if too new or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside."

"As some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire; While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line."

"Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along."

"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense; The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow: Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main."

"At ev'ry Trifle scorn to take Offence, That always shows Great Pride, or Little Sense."

"Yet not let each gay turn thy rapture move; For fools admire, but men of sense approve."

"Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men."

"What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!"

"But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!"

"Some praise at morning what they blame at night, But always think the last opinion right."

"We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow; Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so."

"Fondly we think we honour Merit then, When we but praise Our selves in Other Men."

"Envy will merit as its shade pursue, But like a shadow proves the substance true."

"Be thou the first true Merit to befriend; His praise is lost, who stays till All commend."

"Ah ne'er so dire a Thirst of Glory boast, Nor in the Critick let the Man be lost! Good-Nature and Good-Sense must ever join; To err is human, to forgive divine."

"All seems Infected that th' Infected spy, As all looks yellow to the Jaundic'd Eye."

"Learn then what morals critics ought to show, For 'tis but half a judge's task, to know."

"Be silent always when you doubt your sense."

"And make each day a critic on the last."

"'Tis not enough your Counsel still be true, Blunt Truths more Mischief than nice Falsehoods do; Men must be taught as if you taught them not; And Things unknown propos'd as Things forgot."

"The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always list'ning to himself appears. All books he reads, and all he reads assails."

"Most authors steal their works, or buy; Garth did not write his own Dispensary."

"No Place so Sacred from such Fops is barr'd, Nor is Paul's Church more safe than Paul's Church-yard: Nay, fly to Altars; there they'll talk you dead; For fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

"But where's the man who counsel can bestow, Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know?"

"Led by the light of the Mæonian star."

"Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view, The learn'd reflect on what before they knew."

"Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame, Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame, Averse alike to flatter or offend, Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend."

"The Essay on Criticism...displays such extent of comprehension, such nicety of distinction, such acquaintance with mankind, and such knowledge both of ancient and modern learning as are not often attained by the maturest age and longest experience."

"One of [Pope's] greatest though of his earliest works is the Essay on Criticism, which if he had written nothing else would have placed him among the first criticks and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactick composition, selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression. I know not whether it be pleasing to consider that he produced this piece at twenty, and never afterwards excelled it: he that delights himself with observing that such powers may be so soon attained, cannot but grieve to think that life was ever after at a stand."

"O thou! whatever title please thine ear, Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair."

"Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale, Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs, And solid pudding against empty praise."

"Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er, But lived in Settle's numbers one day more."

"While pensive poets painful vigils keep, Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep."

"Next o'er his books his eyes begin to roll, In pleasing memory of all he stole; How here he sipp'd, how there he plunder'd snug, And suck'd all o'er like an industrious bug."

"Or where the pictures for the page atone, And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own."

"Soon to that mass of nonsense to return, Where things destroy'd are swept to things unborn."

"How index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of science by the tail."

"And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke."

"A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead."

"But blind to former, as to future Fate, What mortal knows his pre-existent state?"

"Another, yet the same."

"Till Peter's keys some christen'd Jove adorn, And Pan to Moses lends his pagan horn."

"Peeled, patched, and piebald, linsey-woolsey brothers, Grave mummers! sleeveless some, and shirtless others. That once was Britain."

"All crowd, who foremost shall be damn'd to fame."

"Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous; —answer him, ye owls!"

"Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease, Midst snows of paper, and fierce hail of pease; And proud his mistress' order to perform, Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm."

"To aid our cause, if Heav'n thou can'st not bend, Hell thou shalt move."

"A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits."

"How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast!"

"The Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong."

"Stuff the head With all such reading as was never read: For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it, And write about it, Goddess, and about it."

"To happy convents, bosomed deep in vines, Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines."

"Led by my hand, he sauntered Europe round, And gathered every vice on Christian ground."

"Judicious drank, and greatly daring din'd."

"Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair, And heard thy everlasting yawn confess The pains and penalties of idleness."

"E'en Palinurus nodded at the helm."

"Philosophy, that lean'd on heaven before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!"

"Religion blushing veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires. Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread empire Chaos! is restored: Light dies before thy uncreating word; Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all."

"[P]erhaps the best specimen that has yet appeared of personal satire ludicrously pompous."

"Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said; Tie up the knocker! say I'm sick, I'm dead."

"Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land."

"E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me."

"Is there a parson much bemused in beer, A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, Who pens a stanza when he should engross?"

"Friend to my life, which did not you prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song."

"Obliged by hunger and request of friends."

"Fired that the house rejects him, "'Sdeath! I 'll print it, And shame the fools.""

"No creature smarts so little as a fool."

"Destroy his fib, or sophistry — in vain! The creature's at his dirty work again."

"As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came."

"This long disease, my life."

"Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there."

"Means not, but blunders round about a meaning; And he whose fustian 's so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad."

"Were there one whose fires True Genius kindles, and fair Fame inspires, Blessed with each talent, and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease; Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne."

"View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame or to commend, A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little Senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause."

"Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?"

""On wings of winds came flying all abroad"."

"Oh let me live my own, and die so too (To live and die is all I have to do)! Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends, and read what books I please."

"Cursed be the verse, how well so e'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe."

"Let Sporus tremble — "What? that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk? Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?""

"Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys."

"Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way."

"Wit that can creep and pride that licks the dust."

"That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long, But stoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his song."

"Unlearned, he knew no schoolman's subtle art, No language, but the language of the heart."

"Me let the tender office long engage To rock the cradle of reposing age; With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death; Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile one parent from the sky."

"Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day."

"Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet."

"But touch me, and no minister so sore; Whoe'er offends at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme, Sacred to ridicule his whole life long, And the sad burden of some merry song."

"Bare the mean heart that lurks behind a star."

"There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl The feast of reason and the flow of soul."

"For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best, Welcome the coming, speed the going guest."

"I've often wished that I had clear, For life, six hundred pounds a year; A handsome house to lodge a friend, A river at my garden's end, A terrace walk, and half a rood Of land set out to plant a wood."

"Give me again my hollow tree, A crust of bread, and liberty."

"A patriot is a fool in ev'ry age."

"Laugh then at any but at fools or foes; These you but anger, and you mend not those. Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore, So much the better, you may laugh the more."

"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."

"All, all look up with reverential awe At crimes that 'scape or triumph o'er the law."

"To Berkeley every virtue under heaven."

"Never gallop Pegasus to death."

"When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one."

"Not to go back is somewhat to advance, And men must walk, at least, before they dance."

"Here, Wisdom calls: "Seek Virtue first, be bold! As Gold to Silver, Virtue is to Gold.""

"He's armed without that's innocent within."

"Get place and wealth, if possible, with grace; If not, by any means get wealth and place."

"Above all Greek, above all Roman fame."

"Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old: It is the rust we value, not the gold."

"The people's voice is odd, It is, and is not, the voice of God."

"The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease."

"One simile that solitary shines In the dry desert of a thousand lines."

"Then marble soften'd into life grew warm, And yielding, soft metal flow'd to human form."

"Who says in verse what others say in prose."

"What will a child learn sooner than a song?"

"Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full resounding line, The long majestic march, and energy divine."

"Ev'n copius Dryden wanted, or forgot, The last and greatest art — the art to blot."

"Who pants for glory finds but short repose: A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows."

"There still remains, to mortify a wit, The many-headed monster of the pit."

"We poets are (upon a poet's word) Of all mankind the creatures most absurd; The season when to come, and when to go, To sing, or cease to sing, we never know."

"Praise undeserv'd is scandal in disguise."

"Years following years steal something every day; At last they steal us from ourselves away."

"The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg."

"Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spoke."

"Call, if you will, bad rhyming a disease, It gives men happiness, or leaves them ease."

"Learn to live well, or fairly make your Will; You've play'd, and lov'd, and eat, and drank your fill: Walk sober off; before a sprightlier Age Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage: Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, Whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please."

"The worst of madmen is a saint run mad."

"Grac'd as thou art with all the power of words, So known, so honour'd at the House of Lords."

"‘Tis the first virtue, vices to abhor; And the first wisdom, to be fool no more."

"The Imitations of Horace seem to have been written as relaxations of his [Pope's] genius. This employment became his favourite by its facility; the plan was ready to his hand, and nothing was required but to accommodate as he could the sentiments of an old author to recent facts or familiar images; but what is easy is seldom excellent: such imitations cannot give pleasure to common readers. The man of learning may be sometimes surprised and delighted by an unexpected parallel; but the comparison requires knowledge of the original, which will likewise often detect strained applications. Between Roman images and English manners there will be an irreconcileable dissimilitude, and the work will be generally uncouth and party-coloured; neither original nor translated, neither ancient nor modern."

"Vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of night."

"Had sighed to many, though he loved but one."

"If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men."

"Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair."

"Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal."

"Might shake the saintship of an anchorite."

"Adieu! adieu! my native shore Fades o'er the waters blue."

"My native land, good night!"

"O Christ! it is a goodly sight to see What Heaven hath done for this delicious land."

"Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell, In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell."

"By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see For one who hath no friend, no brother there."

"Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings."

"War, war is still the cry, "War even to the knife!""

"Gone — glimmering through the dream of things that were."

"A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!"

"Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power."

"The dome of thought, the palace of the soul."

"Ah, happy years! once more who would not be a boy?"

"None are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possess'd A thought, and claims the homage of a tear."

"But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless."

"Coop'd in their winged, sea-girt citadel."

"Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!"

"From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned!"

"Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not, Who would free themselves must strike the blow."

"A thousand years scarce serve to form a state: An hour may lay it in the dust."

"Land of lost gods and godlike men."

"Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground."

"Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon."

"What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now."

"Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart."

"Once more upon the waters, yet once more! And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider!"

"I am as a weed Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail."

"He who grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, So that no wonder waits him."

"'Tis to create, and in creating live, A being more intense, that we endow With form our fancy, gaining as we give The life we image, even as I do now."

"Years steal Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim."

"And Harold stands upon this place of skulls."

"There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men. A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked loved to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell. But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!"

"Did ye not hear it? — No! 'twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street. On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet."

"But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! Did ye not hear it?—No! 't was but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street. On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet."

"He rush'd into the field, and foremost fighting fell."

"And there was mounting in hot haste."

"Or whispering with white lips, “The foe! They come! they come!”"

"Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave."

"Battle's magnificently stern array."

"And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on."

"There is a very life in our despair, Vitality of poison, — a quick root Which feeds these deadly branches; for it were As nothing did we die; but Life will suit Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit, Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore, All ashes to the taste."

"Thou fatal Waterloo. Millions of tongues record thee, and anew Their children's lips shall echo them, and say — "Here, where the sword united nations drew, Our countrymen were warring on that day!" And this is much, and all which will not pass away."

"But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell. And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire And motion of the soul which will not dwell In its own narrow being, but aspire Beyond the fitting medium of desire; And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore, Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire Of aught but rest; a fever at the core, Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore."

"He who ascends to moutaintops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind Must look down on the hate of those below."

"All tenantless, save to the crannying wind."

"History's purchased page to call them great."

"The castled crag of Drachenfels Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine."

"He had kept The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept."

"To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind."

"But there are wanderers o'er Eternity Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be."

"By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone."

"I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me: and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture."

"This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction."

"On the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar."

"All is concentr'd in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being."

"In solitude, where we are least alone."

"The sky is changed,—and such a change! O night And storm and darkness! ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Nor from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!"

"Could I embody and unbosom now That which is most within me,--could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak, All that I would have sought, and all I seek, Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe--into one word, And that one word were lightning, I would speak, But as it is, I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword."

"Exhausting thought, And hiving wisdom with each studious year."

"Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer."

"Fame is the thirst of youth."

"I have not loved the world, nor the world me; I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bowed To its idolatries a patient knee."

"I stood Among them, but not of them; in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts."

"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand."

"Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles."

"She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, Rising with her tiara of proud towers At airy distance, with majestic motion, A ruler of the waters and their powers."

"Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy."

"The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed."

"Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo, The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe!"

"There are some feelings time cannot benumb, Nor torture shake."

"Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound."

"The cold, the changed, perchance the dead, anew, The mourn'd, the loved, the lost,—too many, yet how few!"

"Parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new colour as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till—'t is gone, and all is gray."

"'Tis solitude should teach us how to die; It hath no flatterers; vanity can give No hollow aid; alone — man with his God must strive."

"The Ariosto of the North."

"Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty."

"Fills The air around with beauty."

"Let these describe the undescribable."

"The starry Galileo with his woes."

"Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar, Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore."

"The poetry of speech."

"The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture."

"Then farewell Horace, whom I hated so,— Not for thy faults, but mine."

"O Rome! my country! city of the soul!"

"The Niobe of nations! there she stands."

"Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind."

"Heaven gives its favourites—early death."

"History, with all her volumes vast, Hath but one page."

"Man! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear."

"Tully was not so eloquent as thou, Thou nameless column with the buried base."

"Egeria! sweet creation of some heart Which found no mortal resting-place so fair As thine ideal breast."

"The nympholepsy of some fond despair."

"Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth."

"Alas! our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desert."

"Of its own beauty is the mind diseased."

"Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift."

"I see before me the gladiator lie."

"There were his young barbarians all at play; There was their Dacian mother: he, their sire, Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday!"

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls — the World."

"Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead? Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low Some less majestic, less beloved head?"

"Oh that the desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And hating no one, love but only her!"

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more."

"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin — his control Stops with the shore."

"He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown."

"Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow: Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now."

"Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests."

"And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wanton'd with thy breakers."

"And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here."

"And what is writ is writ,— Would it were worthier!"

"Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been,— A sound which makes us linger; yet—farewell!"

"Bob Southey! You're a poet—Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race, Although 'tis true that you turn'd out a Tory at Last,—yours has lately been a common case; And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? With all the Lakers, in and out of place? A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye.""

"And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But like a hawk encumber'd with his hood,— Explaining metaphysics to the nation— I wish he would explain his explanation."

"And Wordsworth, in a rather long Excursion (I think the quarto holds five hundred pages), Has given a sample from the vasty version Of his new system to perplex the sages; 'Tis poetry—at least by his assertion, And may appear so when the dog-star rages— And he who understands it would be able To add a story to the Tower of Babel."

"You're shabby fellows—true—but poets still, And duly seated on the immortal hill."

"Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows— Perhaps some virtuous blushes."

"Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe will try 'Gainst you the question with posterity."

"For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses, Contend not with you on the winged steed, I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses, The fame you envy and the skill you need."

"If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues, Milton appeal'd to the Avenger, Time, If Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs, And makes the word 'Miltonic' mean sublime,' He deign'd not to belie his soul in songs Nor turn his very talent to a crime; He did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son, But closed the tyrant-hater he begun."

"Would he adore a sultan? he obey The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?"

"I want a hero: an uncommon want, When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one; Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan— We all have seen him, in the pantomime, Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time."

"Brave men were living before Agamemnon."

"Most epic poets plunge "in medias res" (Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road)."

"My way is to begin with the beginning."

"In Seville was he born, a pleasant city, Famous for oranges and women."

"His father's name was Jóse—Don, of course,— A true Hidalgo, free from every stain Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain."

"Her favourite science was the mathematical, Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity, Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all, Her serious sayings darken'd to sublimity; In short, in all things she was fairly what I call A prodigy."

"She knew the Latin—that is, "the Lord's prayer," And Greek—the alphabet—I'm nearly sure."

"'Tis strange—the Hebrew noun which means 'I am,' The English always used to govern d--n."

"In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her, Save thine "incomparable oil," Macassar!"

"Perfect she was, but as perfection is Insipid in this naughty world of ours, Where our first parents never learn'd to kiss Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers, Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss (I wonder how they got through the twelve hours), Don Jóse, like a lineal son of Eve, Went plucking various fruit without her leave."

"Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit, A great opinion of her own good qualities; Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it, And such, indeed, she was in her moralities; But then she had a devil of a spirit, And sometimes mix'd up fancies with realities."

"Fans turn into falchions in fair hands."

"But — Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?"

"I loathe that low vice—curiosity."

"A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing, And mischief-making monkey from his birth."

"Don Jóse and the Donna Inez led For some time an unhappy sort of life, Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead."

"Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection."

"The languages, especially the dead, The sciences, and most of all the abstruse, The arts, at least all such as could be said To be the most remote from common use, In all these he was much and deeply read."

"But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one Beginning with "Formosum Pastor Corydon.""

"The darkness of her Oriental eye Accorded with her Moorish origin (Her blood was not all Spanish, by the by; In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin); When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly, Boabdil wept, of Donna Julia's kin Some went to Africa, some stay'd in Spain, Her great-great-grandmamma chose to remain. She married (I forget the pedigree) With an Hidalgo, who transmitted down His blood less noble than such blood should be; At such alliances his sires would frown, In that point so precise in each degree That they bred in and in, as might be shown, Marrying their cousins—nay, their aunts, and nieces, Which always spoils the breed, if it increases. This heathenish cross restored the breed again, Ruin'd its blood, but much improved its flesh; For from a root the ugliest in Old Spain Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh; The sons no more were short, the daughters plain."

"She Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three."

"Her eye (I’m very fond of handsome eyes) Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise Flash’d an expression more of pride than ire, And love than either; and there would arise A something in them which was not desire, But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul Which struggled through and chasten’d down the whole."

"Her glossy hair was cluster’d o’er a brow Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth; Her eyebrow’s shape was like th’ aerial bow, Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth, Mounting at times to a transparent glow, As if her veins ran lightning."

"She, in sooth, Possess'd an air and grace by no means common: Her stature tall — I hate a dumpy woman."

"That indecent sun, Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay, But will keep baking, broiling, burning on."

"The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone."

"What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, Is much more common where the climate's sultry."

"Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, For jealousy dislikes the world to know it."

"A quiet conscience makes one so serene!"

"Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded That all the Apostles would have done as they did."

"He thought about himself, and the whole earth Of man the wonderful, and of the stars, And how the deuce they ever could have birth; And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars, How many miles the moon might have in girth, Of air-balloons, and of the many bars To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies;— And then he thought of Donna Julia's eyes."

"'Twas strange that one so young should thus concern His brain about the action of the sky; If you think 'twas philosophy that this did, I can't help thinking puberty assisted."

"The sun set, and up rose the yellow moon: The devil's in the moon for mischief; they Who call'd her , methinks, began too soon Their nomenclature; there is not a day, The longest, not the twenty-first of June, Sees half the business in a wicked way On which three single hours of moonshine smile— And then she looks so modest all the while."

"But who, alas! can love, and then be wise? Not that remorse did not oppose temptation; A little still she strove, and much repented And whispering "I will ne'er consent"—consented."

"'Tis sweet to listen as the night-winds creep From leaf to leaf; 'tis sweet to view on high The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky."

"'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home; 'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come; 'Tis sweet to be awaken'd by the lark, Or lull'd by falling waters; sweet the hum Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, The lisp of children, and their earliest words."

"Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth, Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes From civic revelry to rural mirth; Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps, Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth, Sweet is revenge—especially to women, Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen."

"'Tis sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels, By blood or ink; 'tis sweet to put an end To strife; 'tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, Particularly with a tiresome friend: Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels; Dear is the helpless creature we defend Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot."

"But sweeter still than this, than these, than all, Is first and passionate love—it stands alone, Like Adam's recollection of his fall; The tree of knowledge has been pluck'd—all's known— And life yields nothing further to recall Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown, No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven Fire which Prometheus filch'd for us from heaven."

"Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure."

"And truant husband should return, and say, "My dear, I was the first who came away.""

"She ceased, and turn'd upon her pillow; pale She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears, Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil, Waved and o'ershading her wan cheek, appears Her streaming hair; the black curls strive, but fail, To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears Its snow through all;—her soft lips lie apart, And louder than her breathing beats her heart."

"But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws So much as when we call our old debts in At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil, And find a deuced balance with the devil."

"His speech was a fine sample, on the whole, Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call "rigmarole.""

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence; man may range The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart; Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart, And few there are whom these cannot estrange; Men have all these resources, we but one, To love again, and be again undone."

"My heart is feminine, nor can forget— To all, except one image, madly blind; So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole, As vibrates my fond heart to my fix’d soul."

"A panoramic view of hell's in training, After the style of Virgil and of Homer, So that my name of Epic's no misnomer."

"If ever I should condescend to prose, I'll write poetical commandments, which Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those That went before; in these I shall enrich My text with many things that no one knows, And carry precept to the highest pitch: I'll call the work "Longinus o'er a Bottle, Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle.""

"Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope; Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey; Because the first is crazed beyond all hope, The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy: With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope, And Campbell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy: Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor Commit—flirtation with the muse of Moore."

"I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies; Should captains the remark, or critics, make, They also lie too—under a mistake."

"My grandmother's review—the British."

"I was most ready to return a blow, And would not brook at all this sort of thing In my hot youth, when George the Third was king."

"The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er, The copious use of claret is forbid too, So for a good old-gentlemanly vice I think I must take up with avarice."

"What is the end of fame? 'tis but to fill A certain portion of uncertain paper: Some liken it to climbing up a hill, Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour; For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill, And bards burn what they call their ‘midnight taper,’ To have, when the original is dust, A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust."

"Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations, Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain, I pray ye flog them upon all occasions, It mends their morals, never mind the pain."

"Well—well, the world must turn upon its axis, And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails, And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails."

"I can’t but say it is an awkward sight To see one’s native land receding through The growing waters; it unmans one quite, Especially when life is rather new:"

"The best of remedies is a beef-steak Against sea-sickness: try it, sir, before You sneer, and I assure you this is true, For I have found it answer—so may you."

"At leaving even the most unpleasant people And places, one keeps looking at the steeple."

"There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms As rum and true religion."

"Some hoisted out the boats; and there was one That begg'd Pedrillo for an absolution, Who told him to be damn'd—in his confusion."

"'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters; like a veil, Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown Of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail."

"Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell— Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave, Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell, As eager to anticipate their grave; And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell, And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave, Like one who grapples with his enemy, And strives to strangle him before he die."

"A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry Of some strong swimmer in his agony."

"But man is a carnivorous production, And must have meals, at least one meal a day; He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction, But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey; Although his anatomical construction Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way, Your labouring people think beyond all question, Beef, veal, and mutton, better for digestion."

"Till taught by pain Men really know not what good water's worth; If you had been in Turkey or in Spain, Or with a famish'd boat's-crew had your berth, Or in the desert heard the camel's bell, You'd wish yourself where Truth is—in a well."

"If this be true, indeed, Some Christians have a comfortable creed."

"He could, perhaps, have pass'd the Hellespont, As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did."

"Like a lovely tree She grew to womanhood, and between whiles Rejected several suitors, just to learn How to accept a better in his turn."

"And thus like to an angel o'er the dying Who die in righteousness, she lean'd."

"For the night Shows stars and women in a better light."

"That Pasiphaë promoted breeding cattle, To make the Cretans bloodier in battle.For we all know that English people are Fed upon beef—I won't say much of beer, Because 'tis liquor only, and being far From this my subject, has no business here; We know, too, they are very fond of war, A pleasure—like all pleasures—rather dear; So were the Cretans—from which I infer That beef and battles both were owing to her."

"That famish’d people must be slowly nurst, And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst."

"'Tis pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongue By female lips and eyes—that is, I mean, When both the teacher and the taught are young, As was the case, at least, where I have been; They smile so when one's right, and when one's wrong They smile still more."

"Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli,— For love must be sustain'd like flesh and blood,— While Bacchus pours out wine, or hands a jelly: Eggs, oysters, too, are amatory food."

"All who joy would win Must share it,—happiness was born a twin."

"It was a wild and breaker-beaten coast, With cliffs above, and a broad sandy shore, Guarded by shoals and rocks as by an host, With here and there a creek, whose aspect wore A better welcome to the tempest-tost; And rarely ceased the haughty billow's roar, Save on the dead long summer days, which make The outstretch'd ocean glitter like a lake."

"Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please,—the more because they preach in vain,— Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda water the day after."

"Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; The best of life is but intoxication: Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunk The hopes of all men, and of every nation; Without their sap, how branchless were the trunk Of life’s strange tree, so fruitful on occasion: But to return,—Get very drunk; and when You wake with headache, you shall see what then."

"And all was stillness, save the sea-bird's cry, And dolphin's leap, and little billow crost By some low rock or shelve, that made it fret Against the boundary it scarcely wet."

"It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill, Which then seems as if the whole earth it bounded, Circling all nature, hush'd, and dim, and still, With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill Upon the other, and the rosy sky, With one star sparkling through it like an eye."

"They look'd up to the sky, whose floating glow Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright; They gazed upon the glittering sea below, Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight; They heard the wave's splash, and the wind so low, And saw each other's dark eyes darting light Into each other—and, beholding this, Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss."

"A long, long kiss,—a kiss of youth and love."

"Alas! they were so young, so beautiful, So lonely, loving, helpless."

"And thus they form a group that's quite antique, Half naked, loving, natural, and Greek."

"An infant when it gazes on a light, A child the moment when it drains the breast, A devotee when soars the Host in sight, An Arab with a stranger for a guest, A sailor when the prize has struck in fight, A miser filling his most hoarded chest, Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping As they who watch o’er what they love while sleeping."

"Alas, the love of women! it is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing; For all of theirs upon that die is thrown, And if 'tis lost, life hath no more to bring To them but mockeries of the past alone, And their revenge is as the tiger's spring, Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, as real Torture is theirs, what they inflict they feel."

"I hate inconstancy—I loathe, detest, Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast No permanent foundation can be laid."

"Hail, Muse! et cetera."

"Oh, Love! what is it in this world of ours Which makes it fatal to be loved? Ah, why With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers, And made thy best interpreter a sigh? As those who dote on odours pluck the flowers, And place them on their breast—but place to die— Thus the frail beings we would fondly cherish Are laid within our bosoms but to perish."

"In her first passion woman loves her lover: In all the others, all she loves is love."

"'Tis melancholy, and a fearful sign Of human frailty, folly, also crime, That love and marriage rarely can combine, Although they both are born in the same clime; Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine— A sad, sour, sober beverage—by time Is sharpen'd from its high celestial flavour Down to a very homely household savour."

"Romances paint at full length people's wooings, But only give a bust of marriages; For no one cares for matrimonial cooings, There's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss: Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?"

"All tragedies are finish'd by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage; The future states of both are left to faith."

"Wives in their husbands’ absences grow subtler, And daughters sometimes run off with the butler."

"And as the spot where they appear he nears, Surprised at these unwonted signs of idling, He hears—alas! no music of the spheres, But an unhallow'd, earthly sound of fiddling!"

"A pipe, too, and a drum, and shortly after, A most unoriental roar of laughter."

"Dreading that climax of all human ills, The inflammation of his weekly bills."

"He was the mildest-mannered man That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat: With such true breeding of a gentleman, You never could divine his real thought."

"He enter'd in the house—his home no more, For without hearts there is no home; and felt The solitude of passing his own door Without a welcome."

"The cubless tigress in her jungle raging Is dreadful to the shepherd and the flock; The ocean when its yeasty war is waging Is awful to the vessel near the rock; But violent things will sooner bear assuaging, Their fury being spent by its own shock, Than the stern, single, deep, and wordless ire Of a strong human heart, and in a sire."

"Just as old age is creeping on apace, And clouds come o’er the sunset of our day, They kindly leave us, though not quite alone, But in good company—the gout or stone."

"Yet a fine family is a fine thing (Provided they don't come in after dinner); 'Tis beautiful to see a matron bring Her children up (if nursing them don't thin her)."

"A lady with her daughters or her nieces Shines like a guinea and seven-shilling pieces."

"Her overpowering presence made you feel It would not be idolatry to kneel."

"But Shakespeare also says, 'tis very silly "To gild refinèd gold, or paint the lily.""

"Even good men like to make the public stare."

"But now being lifted into high society, And having pick'd up several odds and ends Of free thoughts in his travels for variety, He deem'd, being in a lone isle, among friends, That, without any danger of a riot, he Might for long lying make himself amends; And, singing as he sung in his warm youth, Agree to a short armistice with truth."

"The isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their sun, is set."

"The mountains look on Marathon — And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dream'd that Greece might still be free."

"A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations;—all were his! He counted them at break of day— And when the sun set where were they?"

"And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now — The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine?"

"For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear."

"Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylae!"

"Fill high the cup with Samian wine!"

"You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave — Think ye he meant them for a slave?"

"Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine — Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!"

"But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."

"Milton's the prince of poets—so we say; A little heavy, but no less divine."

"A drowsy frowzy poem, call'd the "Excursion", Writ in a manner which is my aversion."

"We learn from Horace, "Homer sometimes sleeps;" We feel without him: Wordsworth sometimes wakes."

"Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer! Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love!"

"Some kinder casuists are pleased to say, In nameless print—that I have no devotion; But set those persons down with me to pray, And you shall see who has the properest notion Of getting into heaven the shortest way; My altars are the mountains and the ocean, Earth, air, stars,—all that springs from the great Whole, Who hath produced, and will receive the soul."

"Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things— Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, To the young bird the parent's brooding wings, The welcome stall to the o'erlabour'd steer; Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings, Whate'er our household gods protect of dear, Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest; Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast."

"Ah, surely nothing dies but something mourns."

"Nothing so difficult as a beginning In poesy, unless perhaps the end."

"While Youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel."

"But as the torrent widens towards the Ocean, We ponder deeply on each past emotion."

"Now my sere Fancy "falls into the yellow Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion, And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque."

"And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'Tis that I may not weep."

"Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx; A mortal mother would on Lethe fix."

"Some have accused me of a strange design Against the creed and morals of the land, And trace it in this poem every line: I don't pretend that I quite understand My own meaning when I would be very fine; But the fact is that I have nothing planned, Unless it were to be a moment merry — A novel word in my vocabulary."

"The precious porcelain of human clay."

"Perhaps the early grave Which men weep over may be meant to save."

"'Whom the gods love die young,' was said of yore, And many deaths do they escape by this."

"And her face so fair Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air."

"It has a strange quick jar upon the ear, That cocking of a pistol, when you know A moment more will bring the sight to bear Upon your person, twelve yards off, or so."

"But after being fired at once or twice, The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice."

"Even to the delicacy of their hand There was resemblance, such as true blood wears."

"The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation, And for the bass, the beast can only bellow; In fact, he had no singing education, An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow."

"These two hated with a hate Found only on the stage."

""Arcades ambo," id est—blackguards both."

"With eyes that look’d into the very soul— Bright—and as black and burning as a coal."

"I've stood upon Achilles' tomb, And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of Rome."

"Oh! "darkly, deeply, beautifully blue," As someone somewhere sings about the sky."

"When amatory poets sing their loves In liquid lines mellifluously bland, And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves, They little think what mischief is in hand."

"I have a passion for the name of "Mary", For once it was a magic sound to me; And still it half calls up the realms of fairy, Where I beheld what never was to be."

"There's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in, Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine."

"Men are the sport of circumstances, when The circumstances seem the sport of men."

"A lady in the case."

"And one by one in turn, some grand mistake Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake."

"’Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures; And all are to be sold, if you consider Their passions, and are dext’rous; some by features Are bought up, others by a warlike leader, Some by a place—as tend their years or natures; The most by ready cash—but all have prices, From crowns to kicks, according to their vices."

"And is this blood, then, form'd but to be shed? Can every element our elements mar? And air—earth—water—fire live—and we dead? We, whose minds comprehend all things?"

"And nearer as they came, a genial savour Of certain stews, and roast-meats, and pilaus, Things which in hungry mortals’ eyes find favour."

"And put himself upon his good behaviour."

"No Method's more sure at moments to take hold Of the best feelings of mankind, which grow More tender, as we every day behold, Than that all-softening, overpowering knell, The tocsin of the soul — the dinner-bell."

"Yet smelt roast-meat, beheld a huge fire shine, And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared."

"And gazed around them to the left and right With the prophetic eye of appetite."

"But every fool describes in these bright days His wondrous journey to some foreign court, And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise— Death to his publisher, to him ’tis sport."

"Sofas 'twas half a sin to sit upon, So costly were they; carpets, every stitch Of workmanship so rare, they make you wish You could glide o'er them like a golden fish."

"You fool! I tell you no one means you harm." "So much the better," Juan said, "for them."

"Her years Were ripe, they might make six-and-twenty springs; But there are forms which Time to touch forbears, And turns aside his scythe to vulgar things."

"They form'd a very nymph-like looking crew, Which might have call'd Diana's chorus "cousin," As far as outward show may correspond; I won't be bail for anything beyond."

""Not to admire is all the art I know (Plain truth, dear Murray, needs few flowers of speech) To make men happy, or to keep them so" (So take it in the very words of Creech)— Thus Horace wrote we all know long ago; And thus Pope quotes the precept to re-teach From his translation; but had none admired, Would Pope have sung, or Horace been inspired?"

"Not to admire is all the art I know."

"For through the South the custom still commands The gentleman to kiss the lady’s hands."

"There was no end unto the things she bought, Nor to the trouble which her fancies caused; Yet even her tyranny had such a grace, The women pardon'd all except her face."

"She was a good deal shock'd; not shock'd at tears, For women shed and use them at their liking; But there is something when man's eye appears Wet, still more disagreeable and striking."

"Why don't they knead two virtuous souls for life Into that moral centaur, man and wife?"

"There is a tide in the affairs of women Which, taken at the flood, leads—God knows where."

"Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious, Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius."

"Polygamy may well be held in dread, Not only as a sin, but as a bore: Most wise men, with one moderate woman wed, Will scarcely find philosophy for more."

"I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse The tyrant's wish, "that mankind only had One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce:" My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad, And much more tender on the whole than fierce; It being (not now, but only while a lad) That womankind had but one rosy mouth, To kiss them all at once from North to South."

"But she was a soft landscape of mild earth, Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet, Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth."

"I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women, And pity lovers rather more than seamen."

"Our ultimate existence? what's our present? Are questions answerless, and yet incessant."

"A lady of "a certain age," which means Certainly aged."

"A "strange coincidence," to use a phrase By which such things are settled nowadays."

"And her brow clear’d, but not her troubled eye; The wind was down, but still the sea ran high."

"But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime To laugh at all things — for I wish to know What, after all, are all things — but a show?"

"Newton (that proverb of the mind), alas! Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent, That he himself felt only "like a youth Picking up shells by the great ocean — Truth.""

"Ecclesiastes said, "that all is vanity" — Most modern preachers say the same, or show it By their examples of true Christianity: In short, all know, or very soon may know it."

""Let there be light! said God, and there was light!" "Let there be blood!" says man, and there's a sea!"

"For every thing seem'd resting on his nod, As they could read in all eyes. Now to them, Who were accustom'd, as a sort of god, To see the sultan, rich in many a gem, Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad (That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem), With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt How power could condescend to do without."

"Here pause we for the present — as even then That awful pause, dividing life from death, Struck for an instant on the hearts of men, Thousands of whom were drawing their last breath! A moment — and all will be life again! The march! the charge! the shouts of either faith! Hurra! and Allah! and — one moment more, The death-cry drowning in the battle's roar."

"The army, like a lion from his den, March'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay, — A human Hydra, issuing from its fen To breathe destruction on its winding way, Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain Immediately in others grew again."

"The drying up a single tear has more Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore."

"Not so Leonidas and Washington, Whose every battle-field is holy ground, Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone."

"And one enormous shout of "Allah!" rose In the same moment, loud as even the roar Of war's most mortal engines, to their foes Hurling defiance: city, stream, and shore Resounded "Allah!" and the clouds which close With thick'ning canopy the conflict o'er, Vibrate to the Eternal name. Hark! through All sounds it pierceth "Allah! Allah Hu!""

"Carnage" (so Wordsworth tells you) "is God's daughter."

"Thrice happy he whose name has been well spelt In the despatch: I knew a man whose loss Was printed Grove, although his name was Grose."

"’Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch, For one would not retreat, nor t’other flinch."

"The truly brave, When they behold the brave oppress’d with odds, Are touch’d with a desire to shield and save;— A mixture of wild beasts and demigods Are they—now furious as the sweeping wave, Now moved with pity: even as sometimes nods The rugged tree unto the summer wind, Compassion breathes along the savage mind."

"Gaunt famine never shall approach the throne — Though Ireland starve, great George weighs twenty stone."

"Oh, Wellington! (or "Villainton"—for Fame Sounds the heroic syllables both ways.)"

"Call'd "Saviour of the Nations"—not yet saved, And "Europe's Liberator"—still enslaved."

"Never had mortal man such opportunity, Except Napoleon, or abused it more."

"At least he pays no rent, and has best right To be the first of what we used to call 'Gentlemen farmer' — a race worn out quite, Since lately there have been no rents at all, And 'gentlemen' are in a piteous plight, And 'farmers' can't raise Ceres from her fall."

"These quench'd a moment her ambition's thirst — So Arab deserts drink in summer's rain: In vain! — As fall the dews on quenchless sands, Blood only serves to wash Ambition's hands!"

"What a strange thing is man! and what a stranger Is woman! What a whirlwind is her head, And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger Is all the rest about her!"

"Though modest, on his unembarrass'd brow Nature had written "gentleman.""

"When Newton saw an apple fall, he found In that slight startle from his contemplation A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round In a most natural whirl, called "gravitation.""

"And wrinkles, the damned democrats, won't flatter."

"O for a forty-parson power to chant Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt, Not practise!"

"This is the way physicians mend or end us, Secundum artem: but although we sneer In health—when ill, we call them to attend us, Without the least propensity to jeer."

"That water-land of Dutchmen and of ditches."

"Kill a man's family, and he may brook it, But keep your hands out of his breeches' pocket."

"A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping, Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping In sight, then lost amidst the forestry Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown On a fool’s head—and there is London Town!"

"When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter,' And proved it — 'twas no matter what he said."

"But Tom's no more—and so no more of Tom."

"And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but The truth in masquerade."

"In the great world, — which, being interpreted, Meaneth the west or worst end of a city, And about twice two thousand people bred By no means to be very wise or witty, But to sit up while others lie in bed, And look down on the universe with pity, — Juan, as an inveterate patrician, Was well received by persons of condition."

"Even I—albeit I'm sure I did not know it, Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king— Was reckon'd a considerable time, The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme."

"But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero My Leipsic, and my Mount Saint Jean seems Cain."

"John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique, Just as he really promised something great, If not intelligible, without Greek Contrived to talk about the gods of late, Much as they might have been supposed to speak. Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate. 'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article."

"Nought's permanent among the human race, Except the Whigs not getting into place."

"Be hypocritical, be cautious, be Not what you seem, but always what you see."

"O Gold! Why call we misers miserable? Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall; Theirs is the best bower anchor, the chain cable Which holds fast other pleasures great and small. Ye who but see the saving man at table, And scorn his temperate board, as none at all, And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing, Know not what visions spring from each cheese-paring."

"Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure."

"Why call the miser miserable? as I said before: the frugal life is his, Which in a saint or cynic ever was The theme of praise: a hermit would not miss Canonization for the self-same cause, And wherefore blame gaunt wealth's austerities? Because, you'll say, nought calls for such a trial; — Then there's more merit in his self-denial."

"But whether all, or each, or none of these May be the hoarder's principle of action, The fool will call such mania a disease: — What is his own? Go — look at each transaction, Wars, revels, loves — do these bring men more ease Than the mere plodding through each "vulgar fraction"? Or do they benefit mankind? Lean miser! Let spendthrifts' heirs enquire of yours — who's wiser?"

"How beauteous are rouleaus! how charming chests Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins (Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests Weigh not the thin ore where their visage shines, But) of fine unclipt gold, where dully rests Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines, Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp:— Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp."

"Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,"—"for love Is heaven, and heaven is love."

"And hold up to the sun my little taper."

"Some are soon bagg'd, and some reject three dozen. 'Tis fine to see them scattering refusals And wild dismay o'er every angry cousin (Friends of the party), who begin accusals, Such as — "Unless Miss (Blank) meant to have chosen Poor Frederick, why did she accord perusals To his billets? Why waltz with him? Why, I pray, Look yes last night, and yet say no to-day?""

"And these vicissitudes tell best in youth; For when they happen at a riper age, People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth, And wonder Providence is not more sage. Adversity is the first path to truth: He who hath proved war, storm, or woman’s rage, Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty, Hath won the experience which is deem’d so weighty."

"For talk six times with the same single lady, And you may get the wedding dresses ready."

"Such is your cold coquette, who can’t say "No," And won’t say "Yes," and keeps you on and off-ing On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow— Then sees your heart wreck’d, with an inward scoffing."

"Merely innocent flirtation, Not quite adultery, but adulteration."

"A Prince, ... With fascination in his very bow."

"A finish'd gentleman from top to toe."

"Beauteous, even where beauties most abound."

"An eye's an eye, and whether black or blue, Is no great matter, so 'tis in request, 'Tis nonsense to dispute about a hue — The kindest may be taken as a test. The fair sex should be always fair; and no man, Till thirty, should perceive there's a plain woman."

"Rough Johnson, the great moralist, profess'd, Right honestly, "he liked an honest hater!""

"Of all tales 'tis the saddest,—and more sad, Because it makes us smile."

"Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away; A single laugh demolish'd the right arm Of his own country; — seldom since that day Has Spain had heroes."

"However, ’tis expedient to be wary: Indifference certes don’t produce distress; And rash enthusiasm in good society Were nothing but a moral inebriety."

"I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor."

"The English winter — ending in July, To recommence in August."

"The mellow autumn came, and with it came The promised party, to enjoy its sweets. The corn is cut, the manor full of game; The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats In russet jacket:—lynx-like is his aim; Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats. Ah, nut-brown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants! And ah, ye poachers!—’Tis no sport for peasants."

"If all these seem a heterogeneous mass To be assembled at a country seat, Yet think, a specimen of every class Is better than a humdrum tete-a-tete. The days of Comedy are gone, alas! When Congreve's fool could vie with Molière's bête: Society is smooth'd to that excess, That manners hardly differ more than dress."

"Society is now one polish'd horde, Form'd of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored."

"All human history attests That happiness for man—the hungry sinner!— Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner."

"And such is victory, and such is Man! At least nine tenths of what we call so; —God May have another name for half we scan As human beings, or his ways are odd.""

"Death, so call’d, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is pass’d in sleep."

"The world is all before me — or behind; For I have seen a portion of that same."

"Alas! worlds fall — and woman, since she fell'd The world (as, since that history less polite Than true, hath been a creed so strictly held) Has not yet given up the practice quite. Poor thing of usages! coerced, compell'd, Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right, Condemn'd to child-bed, as men for their sins Have shaving too entail'd upon their chins, —A daily plague, which in the aggregate May average on the whole with parturition."

"I for one venerate a petticoat."

"He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield, Who, after a long chase o’er hills, dales, bushes, And what not, though he rode beyond all price, Ask’d next day, ‘If men ever hunted twice?’"

"He ne’er presumed to make an error clearer;— In short, there never was a better hearer."

"And then he danced;—all foreigners excel The serious Angles in the eloquence Of pantomime;—he danced, I say, right well, With emphasis, and also with good sense— A thing in footing indispensable; He danced without theatrical pretence, Not like a ballet-master in the van Of his drill’d nymphs, but like a gentleman."

"Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe, Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast, Is that portentous phrase, "I told you so," Utter'd by friends, those prophets of the past, Who, 'stead of saying what you now should do, Own they foresaw that you would fall at last, And solace your slight lapse 'gainst bonos mores, With a long memorandum of old stories."

"And whether coldness, pride, or virtue dignify A woman, so she's good, what does it signify?"

"There was no great disparity of years, Though much in temper; but they never clash'd: They moved like stars united in their spheres, Or like the Rhone by Leman's waters wash'd, Where mingled and yet separate appears The river from the lake, all bluely dash'd Through the serene and placid glassy deep, Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep."

"'Tis strange, — but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction."

"All present life is but an interjection, An "Oh!" or "Ah!" of joy or misery, Or a "Ha! ha!" or "Bah!"—a yawn, or "Pooh!" Of which perhaps the latter is most true."

"There's music in the sighing of a reed; There's music in the gushing of a rill; There's music in all things, if men had ears: Their earth is but an echo of the spheres."

"The Devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice, An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice."

"A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded, A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded."

"She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew, As seeking not to know it; silent, lone, As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew, And kept her heart serene within its zone. There was awe in the homage which she drew; Her spirit seem'd as seated on a throne Apart from the surrounding world, and strong In its own strength — most strange in one so young!"

"But if a writer should be quite consistent, How could he possibly show things existent?"

"'Tis wonderful what fable will not do! 'Tis said it makes reality more bearable: But what's reality? Who has its clue? Philosophy? No: she too much rejects. Religion? Yes; but which of all her sects?"

"Between two worlds life hovers like a star, 'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge. How little do we know that which we are! How less what we may be!"

"The antique Persians taught three useful things — To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth."

"The worlds beyond this world's perplexing waste Had more of her existence, for in her There was a depth of feeling to embrace Thoughts, boundless, deep, but silent too as space."

"Not so her gracious, graceful, graceless Grace."

"The loudest wit I e'er was deafen'd with."

"Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest."

"But not to go too far, I hold it law, That where their education, harsh or mild, Trangresses the great bounds of love or awe, The sufferers — be't in heart or intellect — Whate'er the cause, are orphans in effect."

"Great Galileo was debarr'd the Sun Because he fix'd it; and, to stop his talking, How Earth could round the solar orbit run, Found his own legs embargo'd from mere walking: The man was well-nigh dead, ere men begun To think his skull had not some need of caulking; But now, it seems, he's right — his notion just: No doubt a consolation to his dust."

"Difficile est proprie comnumia dicere. , Epist. ad Pison."

""Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more Cakes and Ale?"—"Yes, by St. Ann; and Ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too." , Twelfth Night, or What You Will"

"Fela ic monna gefrægn mægþum wealdan! Sceal þeodna gehwylc þeawum lifgan, eorl æfter oþrum eðle rædan, se þe his þeodenstol geþeon wile."

"Ac Offa geslog ærest monna, cnihtwesende, cynerica mæst. Nænig efeneald him eorlscipe maran on orette. Ane sweorde merce gemærde wið Myrgingum bi Fifeldore."

"Swa scriþende gesceapum hweorfað."

"Þæt se beorn ne wat, sefteadig secg, hwæt þa sume dreogað þe þa wræclastas widost lecgað."

"Simle þreora sum þinga gehwylce ær his tiddege to tweon weorþeð: adl oþþe yldo oþþe ecghete fægum fromweardum feorh oðþringeð."

"Nearon nu cyningas ne caseras ne goldgiefan swylce iu wæron, þonne hi mæst mid him mærþa gefremedon ond on dryhtlicestum dome lifdon."

"Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made."

"Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou. Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine."

"Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they."

"Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster. We are fools and slight; We mock thee when we do not fear: But help thy foolish ones to bear; Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light."

"Forgive what seem'd my sin in me; What seem'd my worth since I began; For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee."

"Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confusions of a wasted youth; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise."

"I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things."

"Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Let darkness keep her raven gloss: Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground,Than that the victor Hours should scorn The long result of love, and boast, 'Behold the man that loved and lost, But all he was is overworn.'"

"Old Yew, which graspest at the stones That name the under-lying dead, Thy fibres net the dreamless head, Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock Beats out the little lives of men."

"O Sorrow cruel fellowship, O Priestess in the vaults of Death, O sweet and bitter in a breath, What whispers from thy lying lip?'The stars,' she whispers, 'blindly run; A web is wov'n across the sky; From out waste places comes a cry, And murmurs from the dying sun:'And all the phantom, Nature stands— With all the music in her tone, A hollow echo of my own,— A hollow form with empty hands.'And shall I take a thing so blind, Embrace her as my natural good; Or crush her, like a vice of blood, Upon the threshold of the mind?"

"I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within."

"But for the unquiet heart and brain A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotics numbing pain."

"In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold: But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more."

"One writes, that 'Other friends remain,' That 'Loss is common to the race' — And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain. That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more: Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break."

"Tears of the widower, when he sees A late-lost form that sleep reveals, And moves his doubtful arms, and feels Her place is empty, fall like these; Which weep a loss for ever new, A void where heart on heart reposed; And, where warm hands have prest and closed, Silence, till I be silent too."

"And topples round the dreary west A looming bastion fringed with fire."

"'Tis well; 'tis something; we may stand Where he in English earth is laid, And from his ashes may be made The violet of his native land."

"Behold, ye speak an idle thing: Ye never knew the sacred dust: I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing."

"The shadow cloaked from head to foot."

"Who keeps the keys of all the creeds."

"When each by turns was guide to each, And Fancy light from Fancy caught, And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech."

"I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all."

"Her eyes are homes of silent prayer."

"Whose faith has centre everywhere, Nor cares to fix itself to form."

"My own dim life should teach me this That life shall live for evermore."

"How fares it with the happy dead? For here the man is more and more; But he forgets the days before God shut the doorways of his head."

"Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away."

"Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow. Be near me when the sensuous frame Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust; And Time, a maniac scattering dust, And Life, a Fury slinging flame."

"Do we indeed desire the dead Should still be near us at our side? Is there no baseness we would hide? No inner vileness that we dread?"

"Hold thou the good: define it well: For fear divine Philosophy Should push beyond her mark, and be Procuress to the Lords of Hell."

"O, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete. That not a worm is cloven in vain; That not a moth with vain desire Is shriveled in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another's gain."

"Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall At last — far off — at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream; but what am I? An infant crying in the night; An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry."

"Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear, I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro’ darkness up to God,I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope."

"'So careful of the type?' but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, 'A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing: all shall go.' 'Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death; The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more.' And he, shall he,Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law — Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek'd against his creed —Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just, Be blown about the desert dust, Or seal'd within the iron hills?No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime, That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music match'd with him. O life as futile, then, as frail! O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil."

"O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me No casual mistress, but a wife, My bosom-friend and half of life; As I confess it needs must be."

"And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance."

"And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne."

"So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be, How know I what had need of thee, For thou wert strong as thou wert true?"

"Thy leaf has perished in the green, And while we breathe beneath the sun, The world which credits what is done Is cold to all that might have been."

"What hope is here for modern rhyme To him, who turns a musing eye On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie Foreshorten’d in the tract of time? These mortal lullabies of pain May bind a book, may line a box, May serve to curl a maiden’s locks; Or when a thousand moons shall waneA man upon a stall may find, And, passing, turn the page that tells A grief, then changed to something else, Sung by a long-forgotten mind.But what of that? My darken’d ways Shall ring with music all the same; To breathe my loss is more than fame, To utter love more sweet than praise."

"O last regret, regret can die! No — mixt with all this mystic frame, Her deep relations are the same, But with long use her tears are dry."

"I wage not any feud with Death For changes wrought on form and face; No lower life that earth’s embrace May breed with him, can fright my faith. Eternal process moving on, From state to state the spirit walks; And these are but the shatter’d stalks, Or ruin’d chrysalis of one."

"My blood an even tenor kept, Till on mine ear this message falls, That in Vienna's fatal walls God's finger touch'd him, and he slept."

"He brought an eye for all he saw; He mixt in all our simple sports; They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts And dusty purlieus of the law."

"Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, At last he beat his music out. There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds."

"He seems so near, and yet so far."

"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die."

"Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true."

"Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more, Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind."

"Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws."

"Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in!"

"Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace."

"Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be."

"And thus he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman, Defamed by every charlatan, And soiled with all ignoble use."

"Some novel power Sprang up forever at a touch, And hope could never hope too much In watching thee from hour to hour."

"Large elements in order brought, And tracts of calm from tempest made, And world-wide fluctuation swayed, In vassal tides that followed thought."

"There rolls the deep where grew the tree. O earth, what changes hast thou seen! There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea. The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go. But in my spirit will I dwell, And dream my dream, and hold it true; For tho’ my lips may breathe adieu"

"A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason's colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer'd, "I have felt.""

"And what I am beheld again What is, and no man understands; And out of darkness came the hands That reach thro' nature, moulding men."

"Love is and was my Lord and King, And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring."

"O living will that shalt endure When all that seems shall suffer shock, Rise in the spiritual rock, Flow through our deeds and make them pure. That we may lift from out of dust A voice as unto him that hears, A cry above the conquered years To one that with us works, and trust, With faith that comes of self-control, The truths that never can be proved Until we close with all we loved, And all we flow from, soul in soul."

"CXXXI, stanza 1–3"

"And thou art worthy; full of power; As gentle; liberal-minded, great, Consistent; wearing all that weight Of learning lightly like a flower."

"By which they rest, and ocean sounds, And, star and system rolling past, A soul shall draw from out the vast And strike his being into bounds,And moved thro' life of lower phase, Result in man, be born and think, And act and love, a closer link Betwixt us and the crowning race Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On knowledge; under whose command Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand Is Nature like an open book; No longer half-akin to brute, For all we thought and loved and did, And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit;Whereof the man, that with me trod This planet, was a noble type Appearing ere the times were ripe, That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves."

"If In Memoriam is a grieving man's quest for peace, transcendence, renewed faith, resolution, acceptance, or whatever (all and more have been proposed), then what role does science play in this search—and remember that Tennyson was a champion of science, not an embodiment of the unjust (and probably nonexistent) stereotype of an affected, antitechnological, romantic poet. The scientific verses of In Memoriam are among the most famous, and critical commentary has always viewed them as essential to the narrator's quest in the poem."

"To me, In Memorium is an odyssey in the working out of extended grief. I am awestruck all the more because Tennyson composed the verses in haphazard fashion over seventeen years, yet the sequence of 131 sections rings so true of a chronological account of grieving. How could Tennyson remember and capture the sequence so beautifully? How could he integrate the swirling and swinging moods: the anger, the despair, the emptiness, the search for answers, the exultation of temporary resolution... Above all, I admire Tennyson's treatment of the relationship between science and human values... As a champion of science, Tennyson lauds its power... but he knows that science cannot tell us why a man should die so young, or how a grieving lover should resolve his suffering."

"[I]t seems to me timely to inquire what In Memorium actually contributes to the thought of its time, how much and how truly; and with this inquiry, which must be largely shaped by the question of its structure, must be conjoined the question how it comes that a simple memorial of love and death should be the most influential poem of the century,—which latter inquiry may perhaps best be answered through a study of its purpose."

"[T]hought is subjected to the interpreting light of God and immortality, which idea, reigning throughout the poem, has made In Memorium the most distinctively theological poem of the century."

"Much has been written in recent years which has helped to shed light upon Tennyson's position as a spokesman and teacher of his age; much too that is of special interest and value to students of this particular poem. ...It is no easy matter to present in just proportions the bearings of a masterpiece, which may truly be said to be of equal importance whether we regard it as a creation of art, a study in psychology, a criticism of science, or a contribution to religious thought. ...at almost every line some interesting inquiry arises as to the precise force of an expression, or the exact meaning of an allusion ... For one class of omissions I have no apology to make. It has not seemed to me that it was a part of my business as a commentator to venture upon any judgment as to the permanent worth of what Tennyson has written; or to offer any opinion as to ways in which his thoughts, or the presentation of them, might conceivably have been changed for the better. Indeed I must confess that the more I read of attempts of this kind, the more I am disposed to conclude that Tennyson himself was right when he said, towards the close of his latest volume, But seldom comes the poet here, And the Critic 's rarer still."

"It has become customary to read in... In Memoriam not only organic evolution, but also the geology of... Lyell. Because the relevant sections were written... long before Darwin's Origin of the Species... some literary critics have interpreted these passages as an anticipation of the theory of organic evolution by the intuitive genius of a poet, before the analytical mind of Darwin dared to arrive at the same conclusion. "How did the poet come to forestall the scientists in their own game?" one critic asks."

"I went down to see Tennyson, who is very peculiar-looking, tall, dark, with a fine head, long black flowing hair, and a beard; oddly dressed, but there is no affectation about him. I told him how much I admired his glorious lines to my precious Albert, and how much comfort I found in his In Memorium. He was full of unbounded appreciation of beloved Albert. When he spoke of my loss, of that to the nation, his eyes quite filled with tears."

"Oft him anhaga are gebideð, metudes miltse, þeah þe he modcearig geond lagulade longe sceolde hreran mid hondum hrimcealde sæ, wadan wræclastas. Wyrd bið ful aræd!"

"Ne mæg werig mod wyrde wiðstondan, ne se hreo hyge helpe gefremman. Forðon domgeorne dreorigne oft in hyra breostcofan bindað fæste."

"Wat se þe cunnað, hu sliþen bið sorg to geferan, þam þe him lyt hafað leofra geholena."

"Ongietan sceal gleaw hæle hu gæstlic bið, þonne ealre þisse worulde wela weste stondeð."

"Hwær cwom mearg? Hwær cwom mago? Hwær cwom maþþumgyfa? Hwær cwom symbla gesetu? Hwær sindon seledreamas? Eala beorht bune! Eala byrnwiga! Eala þeodnes þrym! Hu seo þrag gewat, genap under nihthelm, swa heo no wære."

"Her bið feoh læne, her bið freond læne, her bið mon læne, her bið mæg læne, eal þis eorþan gesteal idel weorþeð!"

"A still small voice spake unto me, "Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?" Then to the still small voice I said; 'Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made.'"

"'Self-blinded are you by your pride: Look up thro' night: the world is wide.'This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse.'Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres?'It spake, moreover, in my mind: 'Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind. 'This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse."

"I said, 'The years with change advance: If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance."

"I wept, 'Tho' I should die, I know That all about the thorn will blow In tufts of rosy-tinted snow; 'And men, thro' novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, Will learn new things when I am not.'"

""Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground? "The memory of the wither'd leaf In endless time is scarce more brief Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf."

""Nay­ rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm'd me in the days While still I yearn'd for human praise. "When, wide in soul, and bold of tongue, Among the tents I paused and sung, The distant battle flash'd and rung. "I sung the joyful Paean clear, And, sitting, burnish'd without fear The brand, the buckler, and the spear — "Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life — "Some hidden principle to move, To put together, part and prove, And mete the bounds of hate and love —"As far as might be, to carve out Free space for every human doubt, That the whole mind might orb about — "To search thro' all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, And reach the law within the law: "At least, not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed, "To pass, when Life her light withdraws, Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause — "In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honour'd, known, And like a warrior overthrown..."

""Yea!" said the voice, "thy dream was good, While thou abodest in the bud. It was the stirring of the blood."If Nature put not forth her power About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour?"Then comes the check, the change, the fall. Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. There is one remedy for all. "Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, Link'd month to month with such a chain Of knitted purport, all were vain. "Thou hadst not between death and birth Dissolved the riddle of the earth. So were thy labour little worth."

""That men with knowledge merely play'd, I told thee — hardly nigher made, Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade; "Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, Named man, may hope some truth to find, That bears relation to the mind. "For every worm beneath the moon Draws different threads, and late and soon Spins, toiling out his own cocoon."

"Cry, faint not: either Truth is born Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn. "Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest nights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. "Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines. "I will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow. "If straight thy track, or if oblique, Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embracing cloud, Ixion-like; "And owning but a little more Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower "Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all."

"O dull, one-sided voice," said I, "Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die? "I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds."I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven:"Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream";"But heard, by secret transport led, Ev'n in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head — "Which did accomplish their desire, — Bore and forbore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. "He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones: "But looking upward, full of grace, He pray'd, and from a happy place God's glory smote him on the face."

"I said, "I toil beneath the curse, But, knowing not the universe, I fear to slide from bad to worse. "And that, in seeking to undo One riddle, and to find the true, I knit a hundred others new: "Or that this anguish fleeting hence, Unmanacled from bonds of sense, Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence: "For I go, weak from suffering here; Naked I go, and void of cheer: What is it that I may not fear?""

""If all be dark, vague voice," I said, "These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. "The sap dries up: the plant declines. A deeper tale my heart divines. Know I not Death? the outward signs? "I found him when my years were few; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew."

""Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease? "Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense? "He owns the fatal gift of eyes, That read his spirit blindly wise, Not simple as a thing that dies. "Here sits he shaping wings to fly: His heart forebodes a mystery: He names the name Eternity."That type of Perfect in his mind In Nature can he nowhere find. He sows himself in every wind."He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, And thro' thick veils to apprehend A labour working to an end."The end and the beginning vex His reason: many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counterchecks. "He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would. "Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn. Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half shown, are broken and withdrawn. "Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt."

""Yet how should I for certain hold, Because my memory is so cold, That I first was in human mould? "I cannot make this matter plain, But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, A random arrow from the brain. "It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round. "As old mythologies relate, Some draught of Lethe might await The slipping thro' from state to state. "As here we find in trances, men Forget the dream that happens then, Until they fall in trance again. "So might we, if our state were such As one before, remember much, For those two likes might meet and touch."

""But, if I lapsed from nobler place, Some legend of a fallen race Alone might hint of my disgrace; "Some vague emotion of delight In gazing up an Alpine height, Some yearning toward the lamps of night. "Or if thro' lower lives I came — Tho' all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame — "I might forget my weaker lot; For is not our first year forgot? The haunts of memory echo not. "And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind. "Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory: "For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, could she climb Beyond her own material prime?"

"Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams — "Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare."

"The still voice laugh'd. "I talk," said he, "Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality." "But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark, Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark."

"Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long'd for death. "'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want."

"A second voice was at mine ear, A little whisper silver-clear, A murmur, "Be of better cheer". As from some blissful neighbourhood, A notice faintly understood, "I see the end, and know the good". A little hint to solace woe, A hint, a whisper breathing low, "I may not speak of what I know"."

"Like an Aeolian harp that wakes No certain air, but overtakes Far thought with music that it makes: Such seem'd the whisper at my side: "What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried. "A hidden hope," the voice replied: So heavenly-toned, that in that hour From out my sullen heart a power Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,To feel, altho' no tongue can prove That every cloud, that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love."

"And forth into the fields I went, And Nature's living motion lent The pulse of hope to discontent. I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, The slow result of winter showers: You scarce could see the grass for flowers. I wonder'd, while I paced along: The woods were fill'd so full with song, There seem'd no room for sense of wrong."

"So variously seem'd all things wrought, I marvell'd how the mind was brought To anchor by one gloomy thought; And wherefore rather I made choice To commune with that barren voice, Than him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!""

"There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The Earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore— Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more."

"The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose, The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth."

"Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel— I feel it all. Oh evil day! if I were sullen While the Earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning."

"Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?"

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy."

"The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day."

"As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation."

"Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy Soul's immensity; Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,— Mighty Prophet! Seer blest! On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave."

"O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest; Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:— Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realised, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy!"

"Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither."

"Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! And let the young Lambs bound As to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts today Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind."

"And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

"Qui vauroit bons vers oïr Del deport du viel antif, De deus biax enfans petis, Nicholete et Aucassins, Des grans paines q'il soufri, et de proueces q'il fist, Por s'amie o le cler vis?"

"Nus hom n'est si esbahis, Tant dolans ni entrepris, De grant mal amaladis, Si il l'oit, ne soit garis, Et de joie resbaudis, Tant par est douce."

"C'en paradis ne vont fors tex gens con je vous dirai. Il i vont cil viel prestre et cil viel clop. et cil manke, qui totejor et tote nuit cropent devant ces autex et en ces viés cruutes, et cil a ces viés capes eréses et a ces viés tatereles vestues, qui sont nu et decauç et estrumelé qui moeurent de faim et de soi et de froit et de mesaises."

"Mais en infer voil jou aler. Car en infer vont li bel clerc, et li bel cevalier, qui sont mort as tornois et as rices gueres, et li buen sergant, et li franc home. Aveuc ciax voil jou aler. Et s'i vont les beles dames cortoises, que eles ont deus amis ou trois avoc leur barons. Et s'i va li ors et li argens, et li vairs. et li gris; et si i vont harpeor et jogleor; et li roi del siecle. Avoc ciax voil jou aler, mais que j'aie Nicolcte, ma trés douce amie, aveuc mi."

"The most beautiful story of the Middle Ages, Aucassin and Nicolette, one of the few perfectly beautiful stories in the world…cannot be made into a representative medieval romance: there is nothing else like it; and the qualities that make it what it is are the opposite of the rhetorical self-possession, the correct and deliberate narrative of Chrestien and his school."

"Dahet habbe that ilke best that fuleþ his owe nest."

"Wel fiзt that wel fliзt."

"He is him ripe & fast-rede, ne lust him nu to none unrede: nu him ne lust na more pleie, he wile gon a riзte weie."

"Ne bo the song neuer so murie, þat he ne shal þinche wel unmurie зef he ilesteþ ouer unwille."

"Vor sumeres-tide is al to wlonc, an doþ misreken monnes þonk: vor he ne recþ noзt of clennesse, al his þoзt is of golnesse."

"Vor neuer nis wit so kene so þane red him is a-wene. þanne erest kumeþ his yhephede wone hit is alre-mest on drede."

"Selde erendeð wel þe loþe, an selde plaideð wel þe wroþe."

"3ef thu isihst er he beo icume, his strencþe is him wel neh binume."

"Ne truste no mon to his weole to swiþe, þah he habbe ueole." "Nis nout so hot þat hit nacoleþ, ne noзt so hwit that hit ne soleþ, ne noзt so leof that hit ne aloþeþ, ne noзt so glad that hit ne awroþeþ."

"Moni man is of his flesche clene, þat is mid mode deouel-imene."

"Ich singe mid heom one þroзe, biginne on heh & endi laзe, an lete mine songes falle an lutle wile adun mid alle. Þat maide wot, hwanne ich swike, þat luue is mine songes ilike."

"Hunting he lov'd, but love he laugh'd to scorn."

"Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear, Or like a fairy trip upon the green, Or, like a nymph, with long dishevell'd hair, Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen: Love is a spirit all compact of fire, Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire."

"Affection is a coal that must be cool'd; Else, suffer'd, it will set the heart on fire."

"Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover; What though the rose have prickles, yet 'tis pluck'd: Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast, Yet love breaks through and picks them all at last."

"For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy Doth call himself Affection's sentinel; Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny."

"This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy, That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring."

"Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear."

"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain."

"Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast The sun ariseth in his majesty."

"Grief hath two tongues: and never woman yet, Could rule them both without ten women's wit."

"For he being dead, with him is beauty slain, And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again."

"The South Pole blows and shapes a wintry blast from which the migrant bird flees in haste and terror. His cold breath hurtles round every corner, seeking out all that's green to taunt it with death, until all is in mourning."

"Were it to happen that you should die, they will sing in praise of you; they will pick flowers on the hills to plant round your still dust."

"Red morrow! Red morrow! It promises me surely an early death when the war trumpets blow, the battle will maim me cruelly, me and many a comrade. So soon! So soon! My life will be brought to its end – only yesterday mounted on horseback; presently fallen on the battlefield; by to-morrow in the cool grave."

"The troops and the volunteers storm onwards like lions; they have won; cheers upon cheers; it's one great hold of triumph."

"Here lies one, heavily wounded; there lies one, quite dead; another lies open-mouthed, moaning with thirst."

"For three months I've been wasting my time in a hotel. The food and pudding and champagne are all very well, but just think of the chances I'm missing in the Golden City!"

"The great General C. R. de Wet was still too small for a khaki net."

"Two hundred Long Toms and a pipe, one cartridge belt and rifle, a bottle of Scotch – you know the brand – they brought along with them."

"We thought we were going home, so we tied our bundles across our backs. At one o'clock we went to the gate; I thought the men were going crazy: they laughed, chattered, wept all at once. My heart ached, it was too terrible."

"As far as the food is concerned, if you really want to know: curried rice and troops' sweat, bitter coffee and sour bread; only a Jew can stomach the meat."

"My breakfast and my dinner have been in the sea some time, and tomorrow I'll be following – wrapped in sacks, with iron bars tied to my feet – to feed the sharks. Do tell your mama what a hard time I had, and how bitterly I suffered for my country and my people."

"It was breathlessly still on the lonely veld after the clamour and fierce violence of a terrible fight; only now and then could one hear an anxious sigh, a last word from one about to die."

"One has a back that makes him groan, pull faces, and walk doubled over; another has a head with a sore on it that leaves him dumb with pain."

"So you run off to the doctor to get some comfort; 'Old Little Bit Better' is his name; the fellow can curse most awfully. All he says is: 'Put out your tongue!' And then he gives you a drink, ladled out of a bucket; it's the same for stomach ache, blindness, and lameness."

"And furthermore, friends, we got from this damned lot a little bowl as big as my hat. When first we received them we had a big argument: were they for drinking or for washing?"

"His eye, once so sharp, determined, meaningful, is now deeply sunken, tearful, and glows no more. His pale and trembling lip, moved by his heart, mutely tells the measure of his bitter woe. His wrinkled forehead shows how deeply disaster's plough has drawn its furrows and scored him to the quick."

"Here I sit on Bermuda's shore, with a shattered and exiled from my fatherland. O God, what bitter sorrow."

"Don't you see the blue mountains where our friends were sold, caught by the enemy and sent far away?"

"And many have lost courage and sought safety with the enemy – have devoured their own brothers' blood. O disgrace without measure."

"Notwithstanding the hard times, many found much happiness in Thee; yes, many a man is saying to himself: 'It was good to have been here.'"

"Through powder and fire and hail and lead we have to struggle till we are dead."

"When we go to the ration hall there is a great clamour; we have to push and shove to snatch our food. Oh, we have to stand and stare until we feel like death – some have to wait there till sunset. If we go to the nurse, we have to wait outside. She makes us use an interpreter; she thinks we are her servants. Just listen to her latest quirk: she claims Boer breath makes her sick. She is so angry with us that she has had her house fenced in."

"Oh, the lips that bleakly beg for a drink of water, – wounds that burn! Unheard, unheeded, many a sorrowful cry sounds where the turmoil of battle thunders across the hills."

"It is the winter wind that blows, wailing all night long, wailing for the far-off day; the branches toss, the boughs sway, it is the winter wind that blows... And the winds of winter sing a song of loneliness and silent sorrow; echo-less their lament dies away over the empty veld in the night, sighing through the grass seeds, and drawn is far away."

"Like a mountain, unbowed, broad and block-built – that is he! The face, blow by blow hacked from a cliff; every nick, every bruise the stroke of harsh fate; every notch, every mark freedom's enemy's work – that is he!"

"Alas, that they peered into the world too soon, too soon, and that a sudden frosty night closed upon them...Now they are all lying there, all of them, blossoms under sods, and sleep the quiet, quiet sleep of the dear small dead."

"Then, nebulously, a long white line of shapes come drifting by, loosely and thinly wrapped in veils; some small and far away, others quite close. – Through the soul, wide open, the gale of anguish blows!"

"Accept that which I – who never had the chance to take the last step demanded by love – have built from small fragments into a token of respect: an insignificant series of rhymes – my poem."

"Siembamba, Siembamba, mama's little darling, Siembamba! Whooping cough and consumption, and no milk: bitter for you is the cup of life! There is your place, there among the graves – two in one coffin, a loving couple!"

"Here you sit and shy from the wind that sucks, ice-cold, through the tent's canvas torn by hail – your only shelter at night against the falling rain. The June-chill pours over the Vaal; you only hear the cough of your child and the lazy drip of raindrops on the tent pole."

"Brut þat berne bolde of hand, First conquerour of meri Ingland."

"Selden was for ani chance Praised Inglis tong in France."

"For-þi men sais into þis tyde, Is no man þat murthir may hide."

"Luken luve at the end wil kith."

"Hert sun for-gettes that ne ei seis."

"Curced in kirc than sal thai be wid candil, boke, and bell."

"Nil we, wil we, we sal mete."

"Efter haly kyrc state Þis ilk bok is es translate In to Inglis tong to rede For the loue of inglis lede, Inglis lede of Ingland, For the commun at understand. Frankis rimes here I redd, Communlik in ilk[a] sted, Mast es it wroght for frankis man: Of Ingland the nacion, Quat is for him na frankis can? Es Inglis man þar in commun; Þe speche þat man wit mast may spede, Mast þar-wit to speke war nede; Selden was for ani chance Praised Inglis tong in france; Giue we ilkan þare langage, Me think we do þam non outrage. To laud and Inglis man i spell Þat understandes pat i tell."

"Who gives anything to poor Tom? whom the foul Fiend hath led through fire and through flame, Through ford and whirlpool, over bog and quagmire; That hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters In his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made him Proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over Four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a Traitor. Bless thy five wits! Tom's a-cold. O! do De, do de, do de. Bless thee from whirlwinds, Star-blasting, and taking! Do poor Tom some Charity, whom the foul fiend vexes."

"Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad The tadpole, the wall-newt, and the water; that in The fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, Eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat, and The ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the Standing pool; who is whipped from tithing to Tithing, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who Hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his Body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear, But mice, and rats, and such small deer, Have been Tom's food for seven long year."

"Old Man: 'Tis poor mad Tom. Edgar: And worse I may be yet: the worst is not So long as we can say, "This is the worst"."

"From the hag and hungry goblin That into rags would rend ye, The spirit that stands by the naked man In the Book of Moons defend ye."

"While I do sing "any food, any feeding, Feeding, drink or clothing?" Come dame or maid, be not afraid: Poor Tom will injure nothing."

"On the lordly lofts of Bedlam With stubble soft and dainty, Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding-dong, And wholesome hunger plenty."

"The Moon's my constant mistress And the lovely owl my marrow. The flaming drake and the night-crow make Me music to my sorrow."

"With an host of furious fancies Whereof I am commander, With a burning spear and a horse of air To the wilderness I wander. By a knight of ghosts and shadows I summoned am to tourney, Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end – Methinks it is no journey."

"I'll bark against the Dog-star, And crow away the morning; I'll chase the moon Till it be noon, And I'll make her leave her horning."

"I'll sail upon a millstone, And make the sea-gods wonder; I'll plunge in the deep, till I wake asleep, And I'll tear the rocks in sunder."

"To find my Tom of Bedlam, ten thousand years I'll travel. Mad Maudlin goes with dirty toes to save her shoes from gravel."

"My horn is made of thunder, I stole it out of Heaven, The rainbow there is this I wear, for which I hence was driven."

"Forth from my sad and darksome cell, From the deep abyss of Hell, Mad Tom is come to view the world again, To see if he can ease his distemper'd brain. Fear and despair pursue my soul. Hark! how the angry Furies howl! Pluto laughs, and Proserpine is glad, To see poor naked Tom of Bedlam mad. Through the woods I wander night and day To find my straggling senses."

"Hope maketh fol man ofte blenkes."

"Ther God wile helpen, nouth ne dereth."

"Lith and selthe felawes are."

"Dwelling haveth ofte scathe wrouth."

"He was ful wis that first yaf mede."

"Old sinne makes newe shame."

"A cow of purple is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases. I have never Seen this phenomenon."

"She lived unknown, that Cow, and so I never chanced to see; But if I had to be one, oh, The difference to me!"

"For the wind is in the gum-tree, And the hay is in the mow, And the cow-bells are a-calling "Come and see a Purple Cow!""

"Hence, vain deluding cows. The herd of folly, without colour bright, How little you delight, Or fill the Poet's mind, or songs arouse!"

"I dream of a purple creature Which is not as kine are now; And resembles cattle only As Cowper resembles a cow."

"Though cows of rare sorts I am buying, Not one breathes a balm to my breast. Oh, rapturous, rose-crowned occasion, When I such a glory might see! But a cow of a purple persuasion I never would be."

"Our most hearty laughter Something sad must rouse. Our sweetest songs are those that tell of Purple Cows."

"Full many a cow of purplest ray serene Is haply grazing where I may not see; Full many a donkey writes of her, I ween, But neither of these creatures would I be."

"Ask me no more. A cow I fain would see Of purple tint, like a sun-soaked grape -"

"Open then I flung a shutter, And, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a Purple Cow which gayly tripped around my floor."

"Corniferous wet-nurse of the human race, Calm, comfortable cow, with placid pride Yielding your offering at eventide"

"And to my horror down the lane Came a sight; I froze inside A spectral cow with purple hide."

"In Bovine majesty she stands, Her purple tail she swings, The amethyst cow"

"The greater puzzle of universal wisdom and beauty that we have strived to honor through our work includes the profound legacies of world artistic and spiritual traditions, the innate integrity of human communities where people seek to live in social harmony, and that regenerative stream of life sustained upon the earth itself as it spins through the cosmos to the music of the spheres. It also embraces such simple and yet essential things as the psychic nourishment received from family and friends while growing up; and the welcoming kindness received from “strangers” when venturing forth into the world."

"Everywhere we shine death and life burn into something new, rise up like perfumed nebulae through the jubilant road flowing beneath our feet."

"Drawing has always been a staple, a gratifying part of my being. It was the first creative act I knew. It is the first effort of a child to express perhaps what it cannot or will not express verbally."

"The image titled “The Homeless, Psalm 85:10,” featured on the cover of ELEMENTAL, can evoke multiple levels of response. They may include the spiritual in the form of a studied meditation upon the multidimensional qualities of the painting itself; or an extended contemplation of the scripture in the title, which in the King James Bible reads as follows: “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” The painting can also inspire a physical response in the form of tears as it calls to mind its more earth-bound aspects; namely, the very serious plight of those who truly are homeless in this world, whether born into such a condition, or forced into it by poverty or war."

"These creatures made of starbreath and visions must have seen you in those moments that stood like walls of alien genetics between your life and mine. They knew what you were like, vibrating your entire universe against the skin and tears of another, slowly crushing your skull between planets of intolerance and desire."

"Even as I read the lush work of the poet, the corresponding reproductions reflected the words in yet another medium. The artist Vann works in paint that resembles colored fire—the kind that one knocks one’s head back to gaze upon in the night sky on Independence Day. Fireworks, nearly liquid fire, in every blazing color and few of them muted, but pure, in shivering and shimmering lines... The two artists are a perfect match, words as vibrant as image, image as emblazoned with fiery color as poetry. The occasional essay enlightens as to the inner workings of each, building anticipation for the pages ahead and beckoning return to the pages behind."

"A beautiful book…the reproductions of the paintings are outstanding. The poems were inspired by the paintings, and make perfect companions for the reproductions."

"I knew a very wise man that believed that * * * if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation."

"I have a passion for ballads. * * * They are the gypsy children of song, born under green hedgerows in the leafy lanes and bypaths of literature,—in the genial Summertime."

"I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew! Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers."

"I love a ballad but even too well; if it be doleful matter, merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably."

"I've now got the music book ready, Do sit up and sing like a lady A recitative from Tancredi, And something about "Palpiti!" Sing forte when first you begin it, Piano the very next minute, They'll cry "What expression there's in it!" Don't sing English ballads to me!"

"The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, That wholly consisted of lines like these."

"Thespis, the first professor of our art, At country wakes sung ballads from a cart."

"Some people resemble ballads which are only sung for a certain time."

"For a ballad's a thing you expect to find lies in."

"More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels."

"A famous man is Robin Hood, The English ballad-singer's joy."

"What you do really with paper can never quite come up to with what the paper offers. It's something about that broken package, in the way carton is torn, sort of invites you to come in. There's something about taking out that first sheet, that sort of changes that thing."

"At this point we should remember that the idea of the world as composed of weightless atoms is striking just because we know the weight of things so well. So, too, we would be unable to appreciate the lightness of language if we could not appreciate language that has some weight."

"Were I to choose an auspicious image for the new millennium, I would choose this one: The sudden agile leap of the poet-philosopher who raises himself above the weight of the world, showing that with all his gravity he has the secret of lightness, and that what many consider to be the vitality of the times--noisy, aggressive, revving and roaring--belongs to the realm of death, like a cemetery for rusty, old cars"

"Saving time is a good thing because the more time we save, the more we can afford to lose"

"Chat on, sweet maid, and rescue from annoy Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled! Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy, The heart-love of a child!"

"IF — and the thing is wildly possible — the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (in Fit the Second) "Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes." In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History — I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened..."

"As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the "o" in "worry." Such is Human Perversity."

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried, As he landed his crew with care; Supporting each man on the top of the tide By a finger entwined in his hair."Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true."

"There was one who was famed for the number of things He forgot when he entered the ship: His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings, And the clothes he had bought for the trip.He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed, With his name painted clearly on each: But, since he omitted to mention the fact, They were all left behind on the beach.The loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because He had seven coats on when he came, With three pair of boots, but the worst of it was He had wholly forgotten his name."

"He had bought a large map representing the sea, Without the least vestige of land: And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be A map they could all understand."What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators, Tropics, zones, and Meridian lines?" (So the Bellman would cry) And the crew would reply: "They are merely conventional signs!"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes! But we've got our brave captain to thank," (So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best — A perfect and absolute blank!""

"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes: A thing, as the Bellman remarked, That frequently happens in tropical climes, When a vessel is, so to speak, "snarked.""

"But the principal failing occurred in the sailing, And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed, Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East That the ship would not travel due West!"

"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree That it carries too far, when I say That it frequently breakfasts at five o'clock tea, And dines on the following day."

"'You may seek it with thimbles — and seek it with care; You may hunt it with forks and hope; You may threaten its life with a railway-share; You may charm it with smiles and soap — '" ("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold In a hasty parenthesis cried, "That's exactly the way I have always been told That the capture of Snarks should be tried!") "'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day, If your Snark be a Boojum! For then You will softly and suddenly vanish away, And never be met with again!'"

"You may charge me with murder — or want of sense - (we are all of us weak at times): But the slightest approach to a false pretence was never among my crimes!"I said it in Hebrew — I said it in Dutch — I said it in German and Greek: But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much) That English is what you speak!"

"Taking three as the subject to reason about, (A convenient number to state) We add seven, and ten, and then multiply out By one-thousand diminished by eight."The result we proceed to divide, as you see, By nine-hundred and ninety and two, Then subtract seventeen, and the answer must be Exactly and perfectly true."The method employed I would gladly explain (While I have it so clear in my head) If I had but the time, and you had but the brain, But much yet remains to be said."

"As to temper the Jubjub's a desperate bird, Since it lives in perpetual passion: Its taste in costume is entirely absurd — It is ages ahead of the fashion."

"He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court, Where the Snark, with a glass in its eye, Dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig On the charge of deserting its sty."

"He was black in the face, and they scarcely could trace The least likeness to what he had been: While so great was his fright that his waistcoat turned white— A wonderful thing to be seen!"

"Erect and sublime, for one moment of time. In the next, that wild figure they saw (As if stung by a spasm) plunge into a chasm While they waited and listened in awe."It's a snark!" was the sound that first came to their ears And seemed almost too good to be true. Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers Then the ominous words: "It's a boo--"Then, silence. Some fancied they heard in the air A weary and wandering sigh That sounded like "--jum!" But the others declare It was only a breeze that went by."

"I was walking on a hillside, alone, one bright summer day, when suddenly there came into my head one line of verse—one solitary line—“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.” I knew not what it meant, then: I know not what it means, now; but I wrote it down: and, sometime afterwards, the rest of the stanza occurred to me, that being its last line: and so by degrees, at odd moments during the next year or two, the rest of the poem pieced itself together, that being its last stanza."

"As to the meaning of the Snark? I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense!"

"In answer to your question, "What did you mean the Snark was?" will you tell your friend that I meant that the Snark was a Boojum. I trust that she and you will now feel quite satisfied and happy."

"The Snark has proved itself a stout warrior and has grown in stature as the years pass by; time has dignified it and brought it the respect of generations of Snarkists."

"Although Lewis Carroll thought of The Hunting of the Snark as a nonsense ballad for children, it is hard to imagine - in fact one shudders to imagine - a child of today reading and enjoying it."

"The Hunting of the Snark is a poem over which an unstable, sensitive soul might very well go mad."

"Much fruitless speculation has been spent over supposed hidden meanings in Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark. The inclination to search for these was strictly natural, though the search was destined to fail."

"His crew are simply Tom, Dick and Harry, with the Baker as Everyman. We are all there, all in the same boat, all heading in the wrong direction, going the wrong way."

"It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. "By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?""

"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: May'st hear the merry din."

"He holds him with his glittering eye — The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years child: The Mariner hath his will."

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the light-house top."

"The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon."

"The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she."

"And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald."

"The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound!"

"At length did cross an Albatross, Thorough the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name."

"( In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white Moon-shine."

""God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus! — Why look'st thou so?" — With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross."

"And I had done an hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow!"

"The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free: We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea."

"Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean."

"Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink."

"The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea."

"About, about, in reel and rout The death fires danced at night."

"Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung."

"I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! a sail!"

"Without a breeze, without a tide, She steadies with upright keel."

"Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Night-Mare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold."

""The game is done! I've won, I've won!" Quoth she, and whistles thrice."

"The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea. Off shot the spectre-bark."

"We listened and looked sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip!"

"The hornèd Moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip."

"One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, Too quick for groan or sigh, Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye."

"I fear thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand."

"Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony."

"The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I."

"An orphan's curse would drag to Hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is a curse in a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die."

"The moving Moon went up the sky, And no where did abide: Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside."

"Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watched the water-snakes: They moved in tracks of shining white, And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes."

"Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire."

"O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware: Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware."

"The self-same moment I could pray; And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea."

"Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole."

"We were a ghastly crew."

"It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune."

"'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?' By him who died on the cross, With his cruel bow he laid full low The harmless Albatross"

"The spirit who bideth by himself In the land of mist and snow, He loved the bird that loved the man That shot him with his bow."

"The man hath penance done, And penance more will do."

"Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread."

"Is this the hill? is this the kirk? Is this mine own countree?"

"I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach."

"No voice; but oh! the silence sank Like music on my heart."

"And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, That eats the she-wolf's young."

"Ha! ha!" quoth he, "full plain I see, The Devil knows how to row."

"So lonely 't was, that God himself Scarce seemed there to be."

"Farewell, farewell! but this I tell To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast."

"He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all."

"The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Whose beard with age is hoar, Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest Turned from the bridegroom's door. He went like one that hath been stunned, And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn."

"Of blessed consolations in distress."

"The vision and the faculty divine; Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse."

"Strongest minds Are often those of whom the noisy world Hears least."

"The imperfect offices of prayer and praise."

"He gazed upon that mighty orb of song, The divine Milton."

"The good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket."

"This dull product of a scoffer's pen."

"With battlements that on their restless fronts Bore stars."

"Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop Than when we soar."

"Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged."

"Monastic brotherhood, upon rock Aerial."

"The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!"

"Society became my glittering bride, And airy hopes my children."

"And the most difficult of tasks to keep Heights which the soul is competent to gain."

"For by superior energies; more strict Affiance in each other; faith more firm In their unhallowed principles; the bad Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak, The vacillating, inconsistent good."

"There is a luxury in self-dispraise; And inward self-disparagement affords To meditative spleen a grateful feast."

"Recognizes ever and anon The breeze of Nature stirring in his soul."

"Lost in a gloom of uninspired research."

"We live by Admiration, Hope and Love."

"Pan himself, The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god!"

"I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely; and his countenance soon Brightened with joy; for from within were heard Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed Mysterious union with its native sea."

"So build we up the being that we are."

"One in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A passionate intuition."

"Spires whose "silent finger points to heaven.""

"Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man, Could field or grove, could any spot of earth, Show to his eye an image of the pangs Which it hath witnessed,—render back an echo Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!"

"Wild is the music of the autumnal wind Among the faded woods."

"And when the stream Which overflowed the soul was passed away, A consciousness remained that it had left Deposited upon the silent shore Of memory images and precious thoughts That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed."

"Wisdom married to immortal verse."

"A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays And confident tomorrows."

"The primal duties shine aloft, like stars; The charities that soothe and heal and bless Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers."

"In a deep pool, by happy chance we saw A twofold image: on a grassy bank A snow-white ram, and in the crystal flood Another and the same!"

"Audacibus annue coeptis."

"Unde homines nati, durum genus."

"Umida solstitia atque hiemes orate serenas, agricolae."

"Ut varias usus meditando extunderet artis paulatim."

"Labor omnia vicit improbus et duris urgens in rebus egestas."

"Sic omnia fatis In peius ruere ac retro sublapsa referri."

"In primis venerare Deos."

"Solem quis dicere falsum audeat?"

"Exuerint sylvestrem animum, cultuque frequenti In quascunque voces artes haud tarda sequentur."

"Apertos Bacchus amat collis."

"Hic ver adsiduum, atque alienis mensibus aestas."

"Salve, magna parens."

"Pinguis item quae sit tellus, hoc denique pacto discimus: haud umquam manibus iactata fatiscit, Sed picis in morem ad digitos lentescit habendo."

"Adeo in teneris consuescere multum est."

"Inter pocula laeti."

"O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint Agricolas, quibus ipsa, procul discordibus armis, Fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus!"

"At secura quies et nescia fallere vita, Dives opum variarum."

"Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae, Quarum sacra fero ingenti percussus amore, Accipiant caelique vias et sidera monstrent, Defectus solis varios lunaeque labores; Unde tremor terris, qua vi maria alta tumescant Obicibus ruptis rursusque in se ipsa residant. Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles Hiberni, vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet."

"Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes, Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius."

"O ubi campi!"

"Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas."

"Illum non populi fasces, non purpura regum flexit, et infidos agitans discordia fratres; Aut coniurato descendens Dacus ab Histro, Non res Romanae, perituraque regna."

"Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati, Casta pudicitiam servat domus."

"Sed nos immensum spatiis confecimus aequor, et iam tempus equum fumantia soluere colla."

"Tentanda via est, qua me quoque possim Tollere humo victorque virum volitare per ora."

"Te sine nil altum mens inchoat."

"Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi Prima fugit; subeunt morbi tristisque senectus Et labor, et durae rapit inclementia mortis."

"Collectumque premens volvit sub naribus ignem."

"Magnus sine viribus ignis Incassum furit."

"Nec mora, nec requies."

"Omne adeo genus in terris hominumque ferarumque, Et genus aequoreum, pecudes, pictaeque volucres, In furias ignemque ruunt. Amor omnibus idem."

"Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus."

"Sed me Parnasi deserta per ardua dulcis Raptat amor; juvat ire jugis, qua nulla priorum Castaliam molli devertitur orbita clivo."

"Alitur vitium, vivitque tegendo."

"Admiranda tibi levium spectacula rerum."

"In tenui labor, at tenuis non gloria."

"Nare per aestatem liquidam."

"Ingentes animos angusto in pectore versant."

"Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescunt."

"Agmine facto Ignavum fucos pecus a praesepibus arcent."

"Si parva licet componere magnis."

"Tantus amor florum et generandi gloria mellis."

"Genus immortale manet, multosque per annos Stat fortuna domus, et avi numerantur avorum."

"Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque tractusque maris, coelumque profundum."

"Nec morti esse locum."

"Animasque in vulnere ponunt."

"Verum ubi correptum manibus vinclisque tenebis, tum variae eludent species atque ora ferarum Fiet enim subito sus horridus atraque tigris squamosusque draco et fulva cervice leaena, aut acrem flammae sonitum dabit atque ita vinclis excidet, aut in aquas tenues dilapsus abibit."

"Fata vocant."

"Iamque vale: feror ingenti circumdata nocte Invalidasque tibi tendens, heu non tua, palmas!"

"Illa / flet noctem...maestis late loca questibus implet."

"Illo Vergilium me tempore dulcis alebat Parthenope studiis florentem ignobilis oti."

"Charmed with the foolish whistling of a name."

"[Virgil] delivers the meanest of his precepts with a kind of grandeur: he breaks the clods and tosses the dung about with an air of gracefulness."

"The best poem by the best poet."

"Cum "Georgica" scriberet, traditur cotidie meditatos mane plurimos versus dictare solitus ac per totum diem retractando ad paucissimos redigere, non absurde carmen se more ursae parere dicens et lambendo demum effingere."

"Sub tegmine fagi."

"Nos patriae fines et dulcia linquimus arva."

"Deus nobis haec otia fecit."

"Non equidem invideo, miror magis."

"Spes gregis."

"Sic canibus catulos similes, sic matribus haedos noram, sic parvis componere magna solebam."

"Libertas, quae sera tamen respexit inertem."

"Fortunate senex, hic inter flumina nota Et fontis sacros frigus captabis opacum."

"Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos."

"O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori."

"Habitarunt di quoque silvas."

"Trahit sua quemque voluptas."

"Quae te dementia cepit!"

"Nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis parturit arbor; Nunc frondent sylvae, nunc formosissimus annus."

"Ab Jove principium Musae: Jovis omnia plena."

"Latet anguis in herba."

"Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites."

"Claudite iam rivos, pueri; sat prata biberunt."

"Sicelides Musae, paulo maiora canamus."

"Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo."

"Iam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna."

"Iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto."

"O mihi tum longae maneat pars ultima vitae, Spiritus et quantum sat erit tua dicere facta."

"Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem."

"Incipe, parve puer: qui non risere parenti, Nec deus hunc mensa dea nec dignata cubili est."

"Atque deos atque astra vocat crudelia mater."

"Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta, Quale sopor fessis."

"Candidus insuetum miratur limen Olympi Sub pedibus uidet nubes et sidera Daphnis."

"Ipsi laetitia voces ad sidera jactant Intonsi montes: ipsae jam carmina rupes, Ipsa sonant arbusta."

"Solvite me, pueri; satis est potuisse videri."

"Ambo florentes aetatibus, Arcades ambo, Et cantare pares, et repondere parati."

"Posthabui tamen illorum mea seria ludo."

"Hic tantum Boreae curamus frigora, quantum Aut numerum lupus aut torrentia flumina ripas."

"Ut vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error!"

"Nunc scio quid sit Amor."

"Certent et cycnis ululae."

"Non omnia possumus omnes."

"Nihil hic nisi carmina desunt."

"Carmina vel caelo possunt deducere lunam."

"Numero deus impare gaudet."

"Sed non ego credulus illis."

"Argutos inter strepere anser olores."

"Carpent tua poma nepotes."

"Omnia fert aetas, animum quoque."

"Cantantes licet usque (minus via laedit) eamus."

"Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata, Lycori; hic nemus; hic ipso tecum consumerer aevo."

"Ipsae rursus concedite, silvae."

"Omnia vincit Amor; et nos cedamus Amori."

"As for Cicero, when he had heard some of the verses, his piercing judgement immediately perceived that these were productions of uncommon vigor, and ordered the whole eclogue to be recited from the beginning. Having familiarized himself with its every nuance, he declared it "the second great hope of Rome" [Magnae spes altera Romae], as if he himself were the first hope of the Latin language and Maro the second. These words Virgil later inserted in the Aeneid [12.168]."

"Molle atque facetum Vergilio annuerunt gaudentes rure Camenae."

"Alas! what boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely slighted Shepherds trade, And strictly meditate the thankles Muse, Were it not better don as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair?"

"But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one Beginning with "Formosum Pastor Corydon.""

"[Virgil's] Eclogues are anything but a successful imitation of the idyls of Theocritus; they could not, in fact, be otherwise than unsuccessful: their object is to create something which could not prosper in a Roman soil. The shepherds of Theocritus are characters of ancient Sicilian poetry; I do not believe that they were taken from Greek poems. Daphnis, for example, is a Sicilian not a Greek hero. The idyls of Theocritus grew out of popular songs, and hence his poems have a genuineness, truth, and nationality. Now Virgil, in transplanting that kind of poetry to the plains of Lombardy, peoples that country with Greek shepherds, with their Greek names and Greek peculiarities,—in short, with beings that never could exist there."

"These poems of Virgil have always delighted me much; there is frequently either an elegance or a happiness which no translation can hope to equal."

"No one could remember them afterward: the wind forgot them, the language of water was buried, the keys were lost or flooded with silence or blood.Life was not lost, pastoral brothers. But like a wild rose a red rop fell into the dense growth, and a lamp of earth was extinguished."

"To the lands without name or numbers, the wind blew down from other domains, the rain brought celestial threads, and the god of the impregnated altars restored flowers and lives."

"It was the twilight of the iguana."

"I put my brow amid the deep waves, descended like a drop amid the sulphurous peace, and, like a blind man, returned to the jasmine of spent human springtime."

"How many times in the wintry streetsof a city or in a bus or a boat at dusk, or in the deepest loneliness, a night or revelry beneath the sound of shadows and bells, in the very grotto of human pleasure I've tried to stop and seek the eternal unfathomable lode that I touched before on stone or in the lightning unleashed by a kiss."

"Mighty death invited me many times: it was like the invisible salt in the waves, and what its invisible taste disseminated was like halves of sinking and rising or vast structures of wind and glacier."

"I want to know, salt of the roads, show me the spoon - architecture, let me scratch at the stamens of stone with a little stick, ascend the rungs of the air up to the void, scrape the innards until I touch mankind."

"Through the hazy splendor, through the stone night, let me plunge my hand, and let the aged heart of the forsaken beat in me like a bird captive for a thousand years!"

"Rise up to be born with me, my brother."

"Give me silence, water, hope. Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes. Cling to my body like magnets. Hasten to my veins and to my mouth. Speak through my words and my blood."

"In Cholula the youths wear their finest cloth, gold, and plumes. Aorned for the festival, they question the invader.Death has answered them."

"Everything abounded with death and over the bottomless agony of their ill-starred children, in the territory (gnawed to the bone by rats), they clutched their entrails before killing and being killed."

"Sphere that slowly destroys the night, water, ice, extension assailed by weather and time, with their violent mark, with the blue end of the wild rainbow, my country's feet sink in your shadow and the crushed rose shrieks its dying breath."

"Here comes the tree, thr tree of the storm, the tree of the people. Its heroes rise up from the earth as leaves from the sap, and the wind spangles the whispering multitude's foliage, until the seed falls again from the bread to the earth."

"Aprendió el alfabeto del relámpago."

"Our land - wide land, wilderness - was filled with murmurs, arms, mouths. A mute syllable kept burning, congregating the clandestine rose, until the meadows shook, trampled by metals and gallops.Truth was as hard as a ploughshare.It broke the earth, established desire, sank in its germinal propaganda, and was born in the secret springtime."

"Hunger and pain were the silica of your ancestral sands and a muted tumult, entwined to your peoples' roots, gave the world's freedom an eternity of lightning, of dongs and warriors."

"In our struggle, in our land his crystal was bled, fighting for freedom<br indivisible and banished.In Mexico they impounded the water of the Spanish headsprings. And his abundant transparency remained motionless and mute."

"You were the first to say Freedom, when the whisper passed from stone to stone, hidden in the patios, humiliated.You were the first to say Freedom. You freed the slave's child. The merchantsmoved like shadows selling blood from foreign seas. You freed the slave's child."

"The four and thirty ribs of the strong steed, Kin of the gods, the axe meeteth; Skilfully do ye make the joints faultless; Declaring each part, do ye cut it asunder."

"The birthplace of the horse, indeed, is the sea, its kindred is the sea."

"Om, you for vigor, you for energy, you are breaths, may the God Savitar propel you to the most glorious action (SYV I.1)."

"May you purify my speech. May you purify my breath. May you purify my eye. May you purify my ear ... May your mind be abundant. May your speech be abundant. May your breath be abundant (SYV Ill. 14-5)."

"May your mind unite with the mind, your breath with the breath ... May the ruling Prana be placed in all your faculties. May the ruling Udana (upward moving breath) be placed in all your faculties (SYV III.18-9)."

"The Vajasaneyi Samhita also has miscellaneous historically significant references. Some sort of barter is implied by VS. Book III which is addressed to Indra: ìTo me present thy merchandize, and I to thee will give my wares ... O Satakratu, let us twain barter, like goods, our food and strength.î Book X (VS) prays for the bestowal of kingship to Varuna and Mitra, and XI (VS) prefers to put the burglars, thieves and robbers and criminals in the mouth of Agni or fire. Remarkably charming is the following description of the ploughing operation (Book XII, VS): Happily let the shares turn up the ploughland, happily go the ploughers with the oxen! / ... The keen-shared plough that bringeth bliss, good for the Soma-drinkerís need/ Shear out for me a cow, a sheep, a rapid drawer of the car, a blooming woman, plump and strong. Book XXIX (VS) has an evocative and graphic allusion to battles (also TS IV.6.6): ... She whispers like a womanóthis bow-string that preserves us in the combat/... slung on the back, pouring his brood, the quiver vanishes all opposing ... armies. Upstanding in the car the skilful charioteer guides his strong horses on whithersoíer he will. See and admire the strength of those controlling rains ... horses whose hoofs rain dust are neighing loudly, yoked to the chariots, showing forth their vigour. With their forefeet descending on the foemen, they, never flinching, trample and destroy them."

"About this time I also received a copy of the Yajur Veda from India, which I found, to my surprise since even Aurobindo hadn’t talked of it, to be as inspiring as the Rig Veda. The power of the mantras continued to unfold and new Vedic vistas arose."

"She who bears plants endowed with many varied powers, may Prithivī for us spread wide and favour us. In whom the sea, and Sindhu, and the waters, in whom our food and corn-lands had their being."

"God is really one, only one."

"Whoever knows Atharva Veda knows all."

"The Atharva Veda is a Vedic-era collection of spells, prayers, charms, and hymns. There are prayers to protect crops from lightning and drought, charms against venomous serpents, love spells, healing spells, hundreds of verses, some derived from the Rig Veda, all very ancient."

"A King should address the Assembly thus: Let the leader of the Assembly abide by the just laws passed by the Assembly, let other members do the same."

"O, men, let the man among you alone be made a king the President of the Assembly – who is a powerful conqueror of foes, is never beaten by them, has the capacity to become the paramount sovereign, is most enlightened, is worthy of being made a President, who possess noble qualities, accomplishments, character and disposition, who is thoroughly worthy of the homage, trust and respect of all."

"Who gave to whom?Desire gave to desire. Desire is the giver and receiver; Desire entered the ocean; With desire, I accept you; this is for you, for desire."

"In Atharva Veda, kama is associated with the broad range of human desire; wanting enemies to be defeated; wanting lovers to reciprocate feelings of infatuation, lust, affection, wanting more money and more power; in short wanting to be successful in love and work."

"The person who mistreats a noble woman does bad towards a friend, he who is senior but is ignorant is known as a degraded person. A person should refrain from all those things that take him towards, fallacy, misery and degradation."

"Destroy all those who are lustful, angry, greedy, enticed, proud and jealous."

"Water of river, well, pond, etc., if used and managed efficiently will reduce the intensity of drought and water scarcity;"

"In the heart of the waters, O, King Varuna, your golden home is built; Varuna is considered to be a deity associated with water."

"Earth is mother. Firmament the father. Earth is my mother, I am her son."

"May the waters from the snowy mountains bring health and peace to all people? May the spring waters calmness to you; may the swift currents be pleasing to you; and may the rains be a source of tranquility to all. May the waters of Oasis in the desert be sweet to you; and so be the waters of ponds and lakes. May the waters from the wells dug by humans be good to them, and may the healing powers of water be available to all human beings."

"Set me, O Earth. Amidst what is thy center and thy navel, and visualizing forces that emanate from the body Purify us from all sides. Earth is my mother; her son am I; and Heaven my father :may he fill us with plenty..."

"Aum, We pray for; Peace in the Devaloka, Peace in the pace and on the Earth;Peace in the Waters, peace in the Herbs, the Vegetation and the Forests, Peace among the Rulers of the World, Peace in the Divine, Peace everywhere and in every Thing, Peace, True and Real Peace, Let that Peace be in my mind Peace, Peace, Peace."

"The whole world is like one nest."

"Who is the wife of the year, may she be auspicious to us. Who is the replica of the year, we worship you as that night (AV Ill. 10.2-3)."

"Easy to invoke, oh Agni, may the Krittikas and Rohini be, auspicious Mrigashira and peaceful Ardra. Graceful be Punarvasu, beautiful Pushya, bright Aslesha, with the solstice at Magha for me. Virtuous be Purva Phalguni and Uttara, Hasta and Chitra peaceful and may Swati give me joy. Bounteous Vishakha, easy to invoke, Anuradha, the best Nakshatra Jyeshta, I invoke, and Mula. May Purva Ashadha provide me nourishment and Divine Uttara Ashadha give me strength. May Abhijit provide virtue, as Shravana and Shravishta grant beauty. May Shatabhishak give me greatness for expansion, and the two Proshtapadas give protection. May Revati and Ashwayujaur give me fortune and Bharani grant me wealth (AV XIX.7.2-4)."

"Peaceful for us be the planets and the Moon, peaceful the Sun and Rahu (AV XIX.9.10)."

"The bridal train of the Sun Goddess comes, which the Sun God has set in motion. In Magha (Leo) the cows are slain, in the Phalgunis (Virgo) she is wed."

"In the month of Magha the cows are slain, in Phalguni she is wed (AV XIV.1.13)."

"From which case we have taken the Veda, within that we place it (AV XIX.72.1)."

"At the place of the ship's descent at the top of the Himalayas, there resides the vision of immortality from which the Kushta plant was born; which the Ikshwakus previously knew (AV XIX.39.8-9)."

"The Earth is the Mother, I am her Son."

"The earth upon whom the noisy mortals sing and dance, upon whom they fight, upon whom resounds the roaring drum, shall drive forth our enemies, shall make us free from rivals!"

"To the earth upon whom are food, and rice and barley, upon whom live these five races of men, to the earth, the wife of Parganya, that is fattened by rain, be reverence!"

"The earth upon whose ground the citadels constructed by the gods unfold themselves, every region of her that is the womb of all, Pragapati shall make pleasant for us!"

"The earth that holds treasures manifold in secret places, wealth, jewels, and gold shall she give to me; she that bestows wealth liberally, the kindly goddess, wealth shall she bestow upon us!"

"The earth that holds people of manifold varied speech, of different customs, according to their habitations, as a reliable milch-cow that does not kick, shall she milk for me a thousand streams of wealth! (Bloomfieldís translation)."

"In the villages and in the wilderness, in the assembly-halls that are upon the earth; in the gatherings, and in the meetings, may we hold forth agreeably to thee!..."

"Gentle, fragrant, kindly, with the sweet drink (kÓlala) in her udder, rich in milk, the broad earth together with (her) milk shall give us courage!"

"O mother earth, kindly set me down upon a well-founded place! With (father) heaven cooperating, O thou wise one, do thou place me into happiness and prosperity!"

"The Supreme Being is called neither the second, nor the third, nor yet the fourth. He is called neither the fifth, nor the sixth, nor yet the seventh; he is called neither the eighth nor the ninth nor yet the tenth. He is the One, One alone and only One."

"After having been recited, the Veda is put back in a chest."

"God is verily great."

"Rig Veda is the Veda of Knowledge, Yajur Veda is the Veda of Karma, Sama Veda is the Veda of Bhakthi, and Atharva Veda is Brahma Veda, an umbrella, celebrating the Divine Presence, as in Book 10, hymns 7 and 8."

"The Vedas were revealed by the Supreme Purusha to four primeval Rishis; Rigveda to Agni, Yajurveda to Vayu, Sama Veda to Aditya, and Atharva Veda to Angira, directly into their spiritual consciousness. Brahma received and collected the four from them passed them on to other sages."

"The Atharvaveda stands apart from other Vedic texts. It contains both hymns and prose passages and is divided into 20 books...This text is an extremely important source of information for practical religion, particularly where it complements the Rig Veda. Many rites are also laid down in the “Kausika-sutra” (the manual of the w:Vishvamitra:Kausika family of priests) of the Atharva Veda."

"Atharva Veda is one of the structuring dynamics of Rk Veda. It highlights the quality of Reverberating Wholeness involved in structuring Rk Veda. With reference to consciousness, Atharva Veda comprises the specific sets of laws of Nature that are engaged in promoting the quality of Chhandas within Samhita level of consciousness, providing a structure to the eternally silent, self-referral, self-sufficient, fully awake state of consciousness, which is intimately personal to everyone."

"Atharva Veda is the sum total of all that is pertaining to Samhita with a predominance of Chhandas — observed, or object of observation value. Atharva Veda represents the totality of the musculo-skeletal system — the organs"

"This aspect of the physiology makes the totality of Veda move. This is the value of reverberating wholeness."

"I arise and come to Rig Veda, voice of Divinity. I come to Yajurveda, mind and resolution divine. I come to Sama Veda, energy and ecstasy divine. I come to Atharva Veda, vision and vibration of Divinity. That speech is my light and glory. That light and mind is my strength and spirit of courage and By virtue of the divine, the prana and apana energy is my real might."

"In Atharva Veda,in 13.4, 47-54, the divine virtues are described as: Shachipati or omnipotent, Vibhu or infinite, prabhu or lord of all, ambha, or cool as water, ama or energizer, mahasaha or constant, aruna rajata raja or brilliant, lovely and glorious, uru prithu or vast, subhu or grand, bhuva or omniscient, pratho vara or highest and best, vyacho loka or omnipresent, bhavas vasu or lord of universal honour, idadvasu or lord of the universal wealth, samyat vasu or perfectly self-controlled, and ayat-vasu or ever lustrous or honourable."

"Atharva Veda is the last of the four Vedas. It has not always been accepted as a Veda. It contains many hymns from Rig Veda but also has some popular magic spells which are outside of the strictly ritual knowledge orientation of other Vedas."

"It [Atharva Veda] is collection of hymns but of diverse character, some very exalted, like the Rig Veda, others of more common nature. It gives us a better idea of common people during Vedic times. The book was revealed to Angirasa Rishi."

"The deities of Atharva Veda are also the same as Rig Veda although Rudra-Shiva assumes a more visible role. The language is a little simpler and less variable in its forms."

"Atharvan is also an important figure in the Zoarashtrian religion. Atar is the Persian name for fire, and the Atharvan is the fire priest."

"Some Upanishad teachings are found Atharva Veda.as well."

"關關雎鳩，在河之洲。 窈窕淑女，君子好逑。"

"桃之夭夭，灼灼其華。 之子于歸，宜其室家。"

"摽有梅，其實七兮。 求我庶士，迨其吉兮。摽有梅，其實三兮。 求我庶士，迨其今兮。摽有梅，頃筐塈之。 求我庶士，迨其謂之。"

"舒而脫脫兮，無感我帨兮，無使尨也吠。"

"汎彼柏舟，亦汎其流。 耿耿不寐，如有隱憂。"

"微我無酒，以敖以遊。"

"我心匪鑒，不可以茹。"

"亦有兄弟，不可以據。 薄言往愬，逢彼之怒。"

"我心匪石，不可轉也。 我心匪席，不可卷也。"

"憂心悄悄，慍于群小。 覯閔既多，受侮不少。 靜言思之，寤辟有摽。"

"日居月諸，胡迭而微。 心之憂矣，如匪澣衣。"

"靜言思之，不能奮飛。"

"終風且暴，顧我則笑。 謔浪笑敖，中心是悼。終風且霾，惠然肯來。 莫往莫來，悠悠我思。終風且曀，不日有曀。 寤言不寐，願言則嚏。曀曀其陰，虺虺其靁。 寤言不寐，願言則懷。"

"死生契闊，與子成說。 執子之手，與子偕老。"

"有匪君子，如切如磋，如琢如磨。"

"誰謂河廣，一葦杭之。 誰謂宋遠，跂予望之。誰謂河廣，曾不容刀。 誰謂宋遠，曾不崇朝。"

"投我以木桃，报之以琼瑶。 匪报也，永以为好也。"

"知我者，谓我心忧，不知我者，谓我何求。 悠悠苍天，此何人哉。"

"彼采蕭兮。 一日不見，如三秋兮。"

"风雨如晦，鸡鸣不已。 既见君子，云胡不喜。"

"青青子衿，悠悠我心。"

"東方之日兮。 彼姝者子，在我室兮。 在我室兮，履我即兮。"

"蟋蟀在堂，歲聿其莫。 今我不樂，日月其除。"

"山有樞，隰有榆。 子有衣裳，弗曳弗婁。 子有車馬，弗馳弗驅。 宛其死矣，他人是愉。"

"山有漆，隰有栗。 子有酒食，何不日鼓瑟。 且以喜樂，且以永日。 宛其死矣，他人入室。"

"蒹葭蒼蒼，白露為霜。 所謂伊人，在水一方。"

"遡洄从之，道阻且长。 遡游从之，宛在水中央。"

"月出皎兮，佼人僚兮。 舒窈纠兮，劳心悄兮。"

"伐柯伐柯，其則不遠。"

"昔我往矣，杨柳依依。 今我来思，雨雪霏霏。"

"它山之石，可以攻玉。"

"彼有旨酒，又有嘉殽。 洽比其鄰，昏姻孔云。 念我獨兮，憂心慇慇。"

"佌佌彼有屋，蔌蔌方有穀。 民今之無祿，天夭是椓。 哿矣富人，哀此惸獨。"

"高岸为谷，深谷为陵。"

"他人有心，予忖度之。 躍躍毚兔，遇犬獲之。"

"高山仰止，景行行止。"

"多将熇熇，不可救药 。"

"投我以桃，報之以李。"

"人有土田，女反有之。 人有民人，女覆奪之。 此宜無罪，女反收之。 彼宜有罪，女覆說之。"

"Open the door, my princess dear, Open the door to thy true love here! And mind the words that thou and I said By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade."

"But now thou wilt fill a weary throne, What with rights of the people, and rights of thy own : An ear-trumpet now thy sceptre should be, Eternal debate is the future for thee. Lord Brougham will make a six-hours’ oration, On the progress of knowledge, the mind of the nation ; Lord Grey one yet longer, to state that his place Is perhaps less dear to himself than his race ; O’Connell will tell Ireland’s griefs and her wrongs, In speech, the mac-adamized prose of Moore’s songs :"

"That feminine fancy, a will of your own, Is a luxury wholly denied to a throne ;"

"Then many a stately castle stood O’er dungeons dark and deep ; Then many a noble robber wont The king’s highway to keep. Ah ! these were not the times to praise, Thank God, we know more peaceful days."

"Where temples stood, the tamarinds grow ; Broken columns are mouldering below. No steps are heard in the ruined hall. Such is man’s pride, and such is its fall."

"He cannot hear the skylark sing, The music of the wild bee’s wing; The murmur of the plaining bough ; A gentle whisper fairy low; The noise of falling waters near— All these have left his mournful ear."

"Our prize is won, our chase is o’er, Turn the vessel to the shore. Place yon rock, so that the wind, Like a prisoner, howl behind ; Which is darkest—wave, or cloud ? One a grave, and one a shroud."

"Good springs alike from penitence and praise, From aught that can the mortal spirit raise:"

"Aye, build it on these banks," the monarch said, "That when the autumn winds have swept the sea, They may come hither with their falling rains, A voice of mighty weeping o'er her grave."

"An ebbing tide of fire, the evil powers In fear and anger here are paramount, Rending the bosom of the fertile earth, And spreading desolation. Black as night, And terrible, as if the grave had sent Its own dark atmosphere to upper air, The heavy vapours rise ; from out the smoke Break the red volumes of the central flame, And lava floods and burning showers descend, Parching the soil to barrenness."

"But this sweet palace was for peace, Built by the water-side, When Zerid sheathed the sword and won The Persian for his bride."

"I'd rather have such stirring life as theirs, Who make their own way, and delight to make, Win wealth and honour by their own bright mind, Whose destiny is in itself—than bear The noblest name that ever belted Earl Left honoured to his son—"

"He comes from Kilas, earth and sky, Bright before the deity; The sun shines, as he shone when first His glory over ocean burst. The vales put forth a thousand flowers, Mingling the spring and summer hours; The Suras fill with songs the air. The Genii and their lutes are there; By gladness stirred, the mighty sea Flings up its waves rejoicingly; And Music wanders o'er its tide, For Siva comes to meet his bride."

"I would that the cloister's quiet were mine; In the silent depths of some holy shrine. I would tell my blessed beads, and would weep away From my inmost soul every stain of clay: My heart's young hopes they have left me now, And I sigh for the days of the veil and the vow."

"City of idol temples, and of shrines, Where folly kneels to falsehood—how the pride Of our humanity is here rebuked !"

"It was a king in Africa, He had an only son ; And none of Europe's crowned kings Could have a dearer one. . . . . . Alas ! it was an evil day, When such a thing could be; When strangers, pale and terrible, Came o'er the distant sea. . . . . . They bound him in a narrow hold, With others of his kind ; For weeks did that accursed ship Sail on before the wind. . . . . . At length a lovely island rose From out the ocean wave, They took him to the market-place, And sold him for a slave."

"Summer, shining summer, Art thou bringing now Colours to the red rose, Green leaves to the bough, Music to the singing birds, And honey to the bee ; Summer, shining summer, Oh, welcome unto thee."

"They met beside the stormy sea, those giant kings of old, And on each awful brow was set, a crown of burning gold. No ray the yet unrisen stars, or the wan moonbeams, gave, But far and bright, the meteor light shone over cloud and wave."

"A strain of music like the rushing wind, But deep and sweet As when the waters meet, In one mysterious harmony combined. So swells the mighty organ, rich and full, As if it were the soul Which raised the glorious whole, Of that fair building vast and wonderful."

"He died, and by his death-bed stood The wife, the child, the friend, And saw pale cheek and anxious eye O’er him in fondness bend. Oh, agony !—how could they, King, Call thine a happy end ?"

"For time is vanquished by discovery, By arts which triumph over common wants, By knowledge, which bequeaths the following age All that its predecessor sought and won."

"It is a mighty thing to teach mankind A new idolatry, to bind the weak In their own fancies, to incite the strong By high imaginations, future hopes, Which fill the craving in all noble hearts For things beyond themselves, beyond their sphere."

"Such men may live, fulfil their destiny, Fill a whole land with temples and with tombs, And yet not leave a record of their fame ; Forgotten utterly; and of their faith, No memory, but fallen monuments, Haunted by dim tradition.—"

"Oh, gloomy quarry! thou dost hide in thee The tower and shrine. The city vast and grand and wonderful, And strong, is thine."

"Alas ! the contrast between us, and what We can create; That man should be so little in himself, His works so great."

"Oh, likeness of humanity, ’Tis thus that life flows on, Till every fabric which we built In early youth is gone. The sacred and the beautiful, The mighty and sublime ; Alas, in vain, the heart would save One single wreck from time."

"Oh ! folly of deeming aught earthly can last, Life never knew sorrow whose reign has not past. Oh ! mockery of mockeries, to trust human heart, Whose grief is a shadow, to come and depart:"

"Could the past be restored to the present, Methinks ’twere a union sublime : The past—dreaming, high and ideal, The present—keen, selfish and wise, ’Twould be like the glorious old Grecian, And again steal the fire from the skies."

"Glittering in the morning beam, Crystal runs our little stream, See the flag-flowers bright and blue, Tinge the small waves with their hue; Azure, like a maiden's eye, Surely there the trout will lie: Shadowy hangs the alder bough Hush! we must be silent now."

"One half of our existence is a blank; A mighty empire hath forgetfulness ! History is but a page in the great past, So few amid Time’s records are unsealed."

"Morning, and flowers; green grass, and aged trees— All that can soothe, and calm, and purify, E’en ’mid a busy wilderness of streets."

"Forbid it, England—by thine own great self, By thine own yet unviolated hearths, . . . . Let not thy minister go forth in vain : The fate of Poland now is at thy will; The Autocrat will hear and heed thy voice ; England, my glorious country, speak, and save!"

"From drooping leaves, and bending flowers, Exhaled the midnight dews ! Like love that from its inmost thoughts Its own sweet life renews,"

"Who may deny that on the soul, The coming hours may cast Their shadow, till the future seem As actual as the past."

"Had life no mystery, and no hope, Oh ! who could bear to live !"

"There’s more for thought in one brief hour In yonder busy street, Than all that ever leaf or flower Taught in their green retreat."

"The country is no more left as it was originally created, than Belgrave Square remains its pristine swamp. The forest has been felled, the marsh drained, the enclosures planted, and the field ploughed. All these, begging Mr. Cowper’s pardon, are the works of man’s hands ; and so is the town—the one is not more artificial than the other."

"Change, change, wondrous change, Mighty is thy power, and strange ; Summer sleeps beneath the snow, Fading follows autumn’s glow : Time, what has its chronicle, But of thee and thine to tell ?"

"I give it up in pure despair; But well the muse may turn refractory, When all her inspiration is— A Chinese Town, and an English Factory."

"Dead !—it was like a thunderbolt To hear that he was dead ; Though for long weeks the words of fear Came from his dying bed ; Yet hope denied, and would deny We did not think that he could die."

"All things are signs in nature, still there are Subtle analogies we dimly trace. Perhaps our moral world has but its day, Of which the great sun is the glorious type; And intellect will run its course, and set. If so, we touch on the extremest verge Of our horizon ; and our arts, our power, Our conquests o’er the many realms of mind. Wealth, painting, sciences, and poetry Are but that rich magnificence of hues Which heralds in the closing of our day."

"Never more, when the day is o’er, Will the lonely vespers sound ; No bells are ringing—no monks are singing, When the moonlight falls around."

"Whene'er a person is a poet, No matter what the pang may be; Does not at once the public know it ? Witness each newspaper we see."

"Rage and revenge, and worldly care, Have all been calmed and purified, By memory of the childish prayer I whispered at my mother's side."

"The grave has its vengeance—the dead have their power In the terrible silence of midnight’s dark hour, When each shade is a spectre—and winds have a tone, To the ear of the innocent sleeper unknown ; When the visions ascend from the depths of the tomb, And strange shadows flit thro’ the spectral room."

"It is a glorious thing for man to war With time, by some great work. Wherefore was skill, And energy, and industry, bestowed, If that he use them not ?"

"Oh, build tombs for the dead, they're mightier there Than in their living palaces !"

"Methinks it is a glorious thing, To sail upon the deep ; A thousand sailors under you, Their watch and ward to keep :"

"He does not know his children’s face, His wife might pass him by, He is so altered—did they meet, With an unconscious eye : He has been many years at sea, He’s worn with wind and wave : He asks a little breathing space, Between it and his grave:"

"Poetry is youth's language; and the scroll Whereon is poured the music of its soul, Is like some long-loved friend, whose image seems To bring back memory's deepest, dearest dreams."

"Of all soils, a literary one is the soonest exhausted, and a change of subjects is as much needed as a change of crops."

"And the cold justice still awarded By time, which makes all lots the same. Slayer or slain, it matters not, We struggle, perish, are forgot!"

"What though our passing day but be A bubble on eternity; Small though the circle is, yet still ’Tis ours to colour at our will."

"Mine be that consciousness of life Which has its energies from strife, Which lives its utmost, knows its power, Claims from the mind its utmost dower—"

"Ah! never is that cherished face Banished from its accustomed place— It shines upon my weariest night It leads me on in thickest fight: All that seems most opposed to be Is yet associate with thee— Together life and thee depart, Dream—idol—treasure of my heart."

"Such was the colour—when her cheek Spoke what the lip might never speak. The crimson flush which could confess All that we hoped—but dared not guess. That blush which through the world is known To love, and to the rose alone—"

"For things it were so hard to say Are murmured easily in song— It is for music to impart The secrets of the burthened heart."

"The heart which on itself hath turned, Worn out with feelings—slighted—spurned— Till scarce one throb remained to show What warm emotions slept below, Never to be renewed again, And known but by remembered pain."

"Ah, only those who rarely know Kind words, can tell how sweet they seem. Great God, that there are those below To whom such words are like a dream."

"How fragrant to these dewy hours, The white magnolia lifts its urn The very Araby of flowers, Wherein all precious odours burn."

"And still more hopeless than when last she on their camp looked down, The foeman’s gathered numbers close round the devoted town: And daily in that fatal trench her chosen soldiers fall, And spread themselves, a rampart vain, around that ruined wall. Her eyes upon her city turn—alas! what can they meet, But famine, and despair, and death, in every lonely street?"

"One word there came from her white lips, one word, she spoke no more; But that word was for life and death, the young queen named—the Jojr."

"But weep for those the human things, so lovely and so young, The panting hearts which still to life so passionately clung; Some bound to this dear earth by hope, and some by love’s strong thrall, And yet dishonour's high disdain was paramount with all."

"There is famine on earth—there is plague in the air, And all for a woman whose face is too fair. There was silence like that from the tomb, for no sound Was heard from the chieftains who darkened around, When the voice of a woman arose in reply, ‘The daughters of Rajahstan know how to die.’"

"Beside is a lake covered over with isles, As the face of a beauty is varied with smiles: Some small, just a nest for the heron that springs From the long grass, and flashes the light from its wings; Some bearing one palm-tree, the stately and fair, Alone like a column aloft in the air; While others have shrubs and sweet plants that extend Their boughs to the stream o’er whose mirror they bend. . . . But the isle in the midst was the fairest of all . . . ."

"She bounds o’er the soft grass, half woman half child, As gay as her antelope, almost as wild. The bloom of her cheek is like that on her years; She has never known pain, she has never known tears, And thought has no grief, and no fear to impart; The shadow of Eden is yet on her heart."

"Proud, beautiful, fierce; while she gazes, the tone Of those high murky features grows almost her own; And the blood of her race rushes dark to her brow, The spirit of heroes has entered her now."

"The haughty eye closes, the white teeth are set, And the dew-damps of pain on the wrung brow are wet: The slight frame is writhing—she sinks to the ground; She yields to no struggle, she utters no sound— The small hands are clenched—they relax—it is past, And her aunt kneels beside her—kneels weeping at last."

"Oh sun, how glad thy rays are shed; How canst thou glory o’er the dead? Ah, folly this of human pride, What are the dead to one like thee, Whose mirror is the mighty tide, Where time flows to eternity? A single race, a single age, What are they in thy pilgrimage?"

"The Ganges’ quiet waves are rolled In one broad sheet of molten gold; And in the tufted brakes beside, The water-fowls and herons hide. And the still earth might also seem The strange creation of a dream."

"The heart it has a weary task Which unrequited love must keep; At once a treasure and a curse, The shadow on its universe. Alas, for young and wasted years, For long nights only spent in tears; For hopes, like lamps in some dim urn, That but for the departed burn."

"Out upon morning, its hours recall, Earth to its trouble, man to his thrall; Out upon morning, it chases the night, With all the sweet dreams that on slumber alight; Out upon morning, which wakes us to life, With its toil, its repining, its sorrow and strife."

"O ! glorious triumph, thus to sway at will All feelings in our nature ; thus to work The springs of sympathy, the mines of thought, And all the deep emotions of the heart."

"I know not how it acts on other minds, But this I know, my most enchanted world Is hidden when the curtain falls, and leaves Remembrance only of its gorgeous dreams And beautiful creations."

"There are very many devices wherewith we delude ourselves — indeed, human life has never seemed to me any thing more than a series of mistakes. It is a mistake to be born — another to live — and a third to die."

"Now, a love match is like that childish toy which consists of various boxes enclosed one within another, and yet contains nothing, after all."

"I wonder where Experience got its reputation ? — it has been very easily obtained — but it does not deserve it : they say, that it teaches fools ; it may teach them, but they do not learn."

"Hope and Love are the passions of the heart; the difference between them is, that Hope does not come to an end, but Love does. Love has two terminations ; it concludes either in profound indifference, or in intense hate. Now, in the general run of human natures, there is not energy enough for hate ; therefore, the usual finale is profound indifference ; the most insipid state of existence that can be devised."

"One goes out visiting for pleasure ; a fallacy belonging to that melancholy mania for change which has recourse to stage-coaches, and steam-boats, as if change of scene were change of self."

"— good news stops to take breath on the road ; bad news never requires it."

"They were more wise in other days; Then turn’d the hermit to his cell, And left a world where all betrays, Apart with his own thoughts to dwell."

"Ah ! if this old charm were sooth, One wish yet might tax its truth I would ask, however vain, Never more to wish again."

"People ought to be grateful : I have done a great deal for the poets ; is there not one among them to do something for me ? I entreat them to recollect that I have read them, which is a great deal ; I have bought them, which is still more ; and I have reduced their theory to practice, which is most of all. They owe me a recompense, and I have a plan in my head. I want one of them to come and commit suicide in my garden, and leave a paper behind requesting to be interred in that very spot. He might assign any reason his imagination suggested, and I would take care that religious attention should be paid to his last wish ; indeed, it is for that I desire his death."

"Alas ! hope is not prophecy,—we dream, But rarely does the glad fulfilment come : We leave our land and we return no more; Or come again, the weary and the worn."

"’Tis the worst curse, on this our social world, Fortune’s perpetual presence—wealth, which now Is like life’s paramount necessity."

"It is a glorious task to seek, Where misery droops the patient head : Where tears are on the widow’s cheek, Where weeps the mourner o’er the dead."

"Thou lone and lovely water, would I were A dweller by thy deepest solitude !"

"I deeply felt that song should make One universal link, Uniting, for each other’s sake, All those who feel and think."

"The poet’s lovely faith creates The beauty it believes The light which on his footstep waits He from himself receives."

"Fair Paris caught the crimson hue — Well may I call it fair. With its pure heaven of softest blue. Its clear and sunny air — Soft fell the morning o’er each dome That rises mid the sky ; And, conscious of the day to come, Demand their place on high."

"Round the Pantheon’s height was wrought A web of royal red ; A glory as if morning brought Its homage to the dead. And Notre Dame’s old gothic towers Were bathed in roseate bloom, As Time himself had scattered flowers Over that mighty tomb."

"How little is the happiness That will content a child— A favourite dog, a sunny fruit, A blossom growing wild. A word will fill the little heart With pleasure and with pride ; It is a harsh, a cruel thing, That such can be denied."

"How much they suffer from our faults ! How much from our mistakes ! How often, too, mistaken zeal An infant’s misery makes ! We overrule, and overteach, We curb and we confine, And put the heart to school too soon, To learn our narrow line."

"For the East is earth’s first-born, And hath a glorious dower As Nature there had lavished Her beauty and her power."

"The morning waked with carols, A young and joyous hand Of small and rosy songsters, Came tripping hand in hand. And sang beneath our windows, Just as the round red sun Began to melt the hoar-frost, And the clear cold day begun."

"History hath but few pages—soon is told Man’s ordinary life, Labour, and care, and strife, Make up the constant chronicle of old."

"Abel the victim—Cain the homicide, Were type and prophecy Of times that were to be, Thus reddened from the first life’s troubled tide."

"Fall, fall, ye mighty temples to the ground ; Not in your sculptured rise In the real exercise Of human nature's highest power found. ’Tis in the lofty hope, the daily toil, ’Tis in the gifted line, In each far thought divine, That brings down heaven to light our common soil. ’Tis in the great, the lovely, and the true, ’Tis in the generous thought, Of all that man has wrought, Of all that yet remains for man to do."

"We have no home—we have no friends, They said our home no more was ours ; Our cottage where the ash tree bends, The garden we had filled with flowers. . . . . Alas, it is a weary thing To sing our ballads o’er and o’er ; The songs we used at home to sing— Alas, we have a home no more !"

"I have a steed, to leave behind The wild bird, and the wilder wind : I have a sword, which does not know How to waste a second blow : I have a matchlock, whose red breath Bears the lightning’s sudden death ; I have a foot of fiery flight, I have an eye that cleaves the night. I win my portion in the land By my high heart and strong right hand."

"—the past, which is Imagination’s own gigantic realm."

"Filled with the sweet good-night of flowers that sigh themselves to sleep,"

"Is there a spot where Pity’s foot, Although unsandalled, fears to tread, A silence where her voice is mute, Where tears, and only tears, are shed? It is the desolated home Where Hope was yet a recent guest, Where Hope again may never come, Or come, and only speak of rest."

"Now, doth not summer’s sunny smile Sink soft o’er that Ionian isle, While round the kindling waters sweep The murmur'd music of the deep, The many melodies that swell From breaking wave and red-lipp’d shell ?"

"Go through that city, and behold What intellect can yield, How it brings forth an hundred-fold From time’s enduring field. Those walls are filled with wealth, the spoil Of industry and thought, The mighty harvest which man’s toil Out of the past has wrought."

"The product of that city, now Far distant lands consume; The Indian wears around his brow The white webs of her loom. Her vessels sweep from East to West ; Her merchants are like kings ; While wonders in her walls attest The power that commerce brings."

"Then sounds arise, the echoes bear along Through the resounding aisles the choral song. The billowy music of the organ sweeps, Like the vast anthem of uplifted deeps ; The bells ring forth—the long dark night is done, The sunshine of the Sabbath is begun."

"Cold and obscure, in vain the king and sage Gave law and learning to the darkened age. There was no present faith, no future hope, Earth bounded then the earth-drawn horoscope ;"

"Now, out upon this smiling, No smile shall meet his sight ; And a word of gay reviling Is all he’ll hear to-night, For he’ll hold my smiles too lightly, If he always sees me smile ; He’ll think they shine more brightly When I have frowned awhile."

"—O, tranquil earth and heaven—but their repose, What influence hath it on the mourner there ! Her eye is fix’d in terrible despair, Her lip is white with pain, and, spectre-like, Her shape is worn with famine—on her arm Rests a dead child—she does not weep for it. Two more are at her side, she’d weep for them, But that she is too desperate to weep :"

"Black and more black the midnight grew, Black and more black was the water’s hue ; Then a ghastly sound on the silence broke, And I thought of the dead beneath the oak."

"Such are the common people of the soul, Of whom the stars write not in their bright scroll. These, when the sunshine at the noontide makes Golden confusion in the forest brakes, See no sweet shadows gliding o’er the grass, Which seems to fill with wild flowers as they pass ; These, from the twilight music of the fount Ask not its secret and its sweet account ; These never seek to read the chronicle Which hides within the hyacinth’s dim-lit bell: They know not of the poetry which lies Upon the summer rose’s languid eyes; They have no spiritual visitings elysian, They dream no dreamings, and they see no vision."

"But decay—the pulses tremble When its livid signs appear : When the once-loved lips resemble All we loathe, and all we fear. Is it not a ghastly ending For the body’s godlike form, Thus to the damp earth descending, Food and triumph to the worm ?"

"What know we of them ? Nothing—there they stand, Gloomy as night, inscrutible as fate."

"Time—tempest—warfare—ordinary decay, Is not for these. The memory of man Has lost their rise—although they are his work. Two senses here are present ; one of Power, And one of Nothingness ; doth it not mock The mighty mind to see the meaner part, The task it taught its hands, outlast itself?"

"Why did she love her mother’s so? It hath wrought her wondrous wo."

"The stately stranger’s head was bound With a bright and golden round; Curiously inlaid, each scale Shone upon his glittering mail;"

"Who has not, when but a child, Treasured up some vision wild: Haunting them with nameless fear, Filling all they see or hear, In the midnight’s lonely hour, With a strange mysterious power?"

"And the thought of what has been, And the thought of what might be, Makes us crave the fancied scene, And despise reality."

"Easy ’tis advice to give, Hard it is advice to take Years that lived—and years to live, Wide and weary difference make."

"Still illusion’s purple light Was upon the morning tide, And there rose before her sight The loveliness of life untried. Three sweet genii, —Youth, Love, Hope, — Drew her future horoscope. Must such lights themselves consume? Must she be her own dark tomb?"

"Willows by that river grow With their leaves half green, half snow, Summer never seems to be Present all with that sad tree. With its bending boughs are wrought Tender and associate thought, Of the wreaths that maidens wear In their long neglected hair. Of the branches that are thrown On the last, the funeral stone."

"By the love that makes thee mine I am deeply, dearly thine. But a spell is on me thrown, Six days may each deed be shown. But the seventh day must be Mine, and only known to me. Never must thy step intrude On its silent solitude."

"Then his jealous fancies rose, (Our Lady keep the mind from those!) Like a fire within the brain, Maddens that consuming pain. Henceforth is no rest by night, Henceforth day has no delight. Life hath agonies that tell Of their late left native hell. But mid their despair is none Like that of the jealous one."

"Come what will, of weal or wo, ’Tis the best the worst to know."

"Downwards from that slender waist, By a golden zone embraced, Do the many folds escape, Of the subtle serpent’s shape.— Bright with many-coloured dyes All the glittering scales arise, With a red and purple glow Colouring the waves below! At the strange and fearful sight, Stands in mute despair the knight,— Soon to feel a worse despair, Melusina sees him there! And to see him is to part With the idol of her heart, Part as just the setting sun Tells the fatal day is done."

"She leaves it to the sacred stream, She leaves it to the tide, Her little child—her darling one, And she has none beside."

"She comes ! So comes the Moon, when has she found A silvery path wherein through heaven to glide ? Fling the white veil—a summer cloud—around ; She is a bride !"

"How wonderful the common street, Its tumult and its throng, The hurrying of the thousand feet That bear life's cares along. How strongly is the present felt, With such a scene beside; All sounds in one vast murmur melt The thunder of the tide."

"Such must have been his history, who first Cut this sad hermitage within the rock: Some spirit-broken and world-weary man, Whose love was in the grave—whose hope in heaven. Yet a fine nature must have been his own ; A sense of beauty—and a strong delight In the brave seeming of the visible world, Whose loveliness is like a sympathy."

"Alas ! for our ancient believings, We have nothing now left to believe ; The oracle, augur, and omen No longer dismay and deceive."

"Thou beautiful new comer, With white and maiden brow ; Thou fairy gift from summer, Why art thou blooming now ? This dim and sheltered alley Is dark with winter green ; Not such as in the valley At sweet spring-time is seen."

"Float on—float on—my haunted bark, Above the midnight tide; Bear softly o’er the waters dark The hopes that with thee glide."

"A stranger to her forest home, That fair young stranger came; They raised for him the funeral song— For him the funeral flame. Love sprang from pity,—and her arms Around his arms she threw; She told her father, “If he dies, Your daughter dieth too.” For her sweet sake they set him free— He lingered at her side; And many a native song yet tells Of that pale stranger’s bride."

"None watched the lonely Indian girl,— She passed unmarked of all, Until they saw her slight canoe Approach the mighty Fall! Upright, within that slender boat They saw the pale girl stand, Her dark hair streaming far behind— Uprais’d her desperate hand. The air is filled with shriek and shout— They call, but call in vain; The boat amid the waters dash'd— ’Twas never seen again!"

"Summer is come, with her leaves and her flowers— Summer is come, with the sun on her hours; The lark in the clouds, and the thrush on the bough, And the dove in the thicket, make melody now. The noon is abroad, but the shadows are cool Where the green rushes grow in the dark forest pool."

"The sledge is yoked, away we go, Amid the firs, o’er the soundless snow."

"None heed the wandering boy who sings, An orphan though so young; None think how far the singer brings The songs which he has sung."

"For years, long years, Years that make centuries—those dimlit aisles, Where rainbows play, from coloured windows flung, Have echoed to the voice of prayer and praise ; With the last lights of evening flitting round, Making a rosy atmosphere of hope."

"Few save the poor feel for the poor, The rich know not how hard It is to be of needful food And needful rest debarred."

"Mournfully they pass away, The dearest and the fairest ; Beauty, thou art common clay, Common doom thou sharest."

"Sympathy is the softener of death, and memory of the loved and the lost is the earthly shadow of their immortality. But who turns aside amid those crowds that hurry through the thronged and noisy streets?—No one can love London better than I do; but never do I wish to be buried there. It is the best place in the world for a house, and the worst for a grave."

"I come from my home in the depth of the sea, I come that thy dreams may be haunted by me ; Not as we parted, the rose on my brow, But shadowy, silent, I visit thee now."

"Alas, alas ! those ancient towers, Where never now the vespers ring, But lonely at the midnight hours, Flits by the bat on dusky wing. No more beneath the moonlight dim, No more beneath the planet ray, Those arches echo with the hymn That bears life’s meaner cares away."

"See, he bears the line away, Round him flies the snowy spray. I have given him length and line, One last struggle, he is mine. Fling the green arbutus bough On the glowing ashes now ; Let the cup with red wine foam,— I have brought the salmon home."

"You must come back, my brother, For Christmas is so near, And Christmas is the crowning time, The purple of the year ;"

"She comes with the midnight—meet not her cold eye, It shines but on those who are fated to die. She comes with the midnight, when spirits have power— She comes with the midnight, and evil the hour."

"Little the present careth for the past, Too little,—’tis not well! For careless ones we dwell Beneath the mighty shadow it has cast."

"For the present doth inherit All the glories of the past ; We retain what was its spirit, While its dust to dust is cast, All good angels guard the sleep Of the ancient warriors, The warriors of olden time"

"Life in its many shapes was there, The busy and the gay; Faces that seemed too young and fair To ever know decay. …. There came a slow and silent band In sad procession by: Reversed the musket in each hand, And downcast every eye. They bore the soldier to his grave; The sympathising crowd Divided like a parted wave By some dark vessel ploughed. …. Again, all filled with light and breath, I passed the crowded street— Oh, great extremes of life and death, How strangely do ye meet!"

"It is the minstrel’s part to fling Around the present’s common cope, The solemn hues on Memory’s wing, The spiritual light of Hope. The scene that to a careless eye Seems nothing but itself to be, Has charmed earth and haunted sky — Seen as the minstrel’s eye can see. Himself is but an instrument Inspired by that diviner hour, When first Imagination lent To earth its passion and its power."

"Thus with some sweet dream’s assistance, Float they down life’s stream; Would to heaven our whole existence Could be such a dream!"

"’Twas the deep forest bodied forth that fane, So rose the arches of the old oak trees, So wreathed the close set branches at their side, So through the open spaces gleamed the sun ; While like an anthem sang the morning birds."

"Hither, famed Ulysses, steer, Pass not, pride of Greece, along To our haven come and hear, Come and hear the Sirens' song."

"Human heart this history Is thy fated lot, Even such thy watching For what cometh not Till with anxious waiting dull Round thee fades the beautiful."

"Again I am beside the lake, The lonely lake which used to be The wide world of the beating heart, When I was, love, with thee."

"A little while hast thou to be a child, Thy lot is all too high ; Thy face is very fair, thine eyes are mild, But duties on thine arduous path are piled— A nation’s hopes and fears blend with thy destiny."

"They were poor, and by their cabin, Pale want sat at the door ; And the summer to their harvest Brought insufficient store."

"How many are the lovely lays That haunt our English tongue, Defrauded of their poet’s praise Forgotten he who sung."

"He cometh from the purple hills, Where the fight has been to-day; He bears the standard in his hand— Shout round the victor’s way. The sun-set of a battle won, Is round his steps from Marathon."

"Low it lieth—earth to earth— And to which that earth gave birth— Palace, market-street, and fane ; Dust that never asks in vain, Hath reclaimed its own again. Dust, the wide world’s king."

"And such a task it is to steer A people in their high career, When old opinions war, and change Is sudden, violent, and strange ; And men recall the past, to say, So shall not be the coming day."

"It shall never be lowered, the black flag we bear ; If the sea be denied us, we sweep through the air."

"The prayer for another, to Heaven addrest, Comes back to the breather thrice blessing and blest."

"Lay her in the gentle earth, Where the summer maketh mirth ; Where young violets have birth ; Where the lily bendeth. Lay her there, the lovely one ! With the rose, her funeral stone ; And for tears, such showers alone As the rain of April lendeth."

"It is pleasant through the city In a sunny day to roam ; And yet my full heart turns to thee, My own, my greenwood home."

"Vainly did the augur seek In its path the will of heaven ; Not to that fierce eye and beak, Was the fated future given. No, the future’s depths were stirred By the white wings of the dove ; When the troubled earth first heard Words of peace and words of love."

"Yet that old chivalric hour Hath upon the present power Changed—and softened and refined It has left its best behind. What may its bequeathings be ? Honour, song, and courtesy. Like the spirit of its clay, Yesterday redeems to-day."

"And such is still the recompense appointed for the mind, That seeketh, with its eyes afar, the glory of its kind. The poet yields the beautiful that in his being lives : Unthankful, cold, and careless, are they to whom he gives."

"Look to the past—if present there Be visible one great despair : Look to the future—if it give Nothing which charmeth thee to live. Then come—the present knows its doom, Thy heart already is a tomb."

"By another light surrounded Than our actual sky; With the purple ocean bounded Does the island lie, Like a dream of the old world."

"Still their silent thread entwining Of our wretched life ; With their cold pale hands combining Hate, and fear, and strife. Hovers the avenging day O’er the glorious island Where Ulysses was the king."

"Heavily rung the old church bells, But no one came to prayer: The weeds were growing in the street, Silence and Fate were there. O’er the first grave by which I stood, Tears fell, and flowers were thrown, The last grave held six hundred lives, And there I stood alone."

"A generous inspiration Is on the outward world ; It waketh thoughts and feelings In careless coldness furled. To love and to admire Seems natural to the heart ; Life’s small and selfish interests From such a scene depart."

"Trouble and discontent, and hours whose dial Is in the feverish heart which knows not rest ; These give the midnight’s sinking sleep denial, These leave the midnight’s dreaming couch unprest."

"Still let love—song—and hope—make thee their mirror, Oh, life and earth, what were ye without dreams!"

"The warrior, sage, and poet fill their story With all the various honours of mankind ; — May thy young reign achieve yet truer glory, The pure, enlightened triumphs of the mind ! Too much in this wide world yet needs redressing ; But with thy reign Hope’s loveliest promise came. May thy sweet youth be sheltered by the blessing A nation breathes upon Victoria’s name !"

"He wears the green robe of the Prophet’s high line, He is sprung from the chieftain of Mecca’s far shrine ; His horse, on whose bridle the white pearls are sown, Has a lineage as distant and pure as his own."

"High in the azure heavens, ye ancient mountains, Do ye uplift your old ancestral snows, Gathering amid the clouds those icy fountains, Whence many a sunny stream through India flows."

"’Tis strange how much of this wide world is lonely, Earth hath its trackless forests dark and green, And its wild deserts of the sand, where only The wind, a weary wanderer, hath been."

"But on the ocean never track remaining Attests the progress of the human race ; The ship will pass without a wave retaining The lovely likeness mirrored on its face. And thus, O Time, that hast our world in keeping, So dost thou roll the current of thy years ; Away, away, in thy dark waters sweeping, All mortal cares and sorrows, hopes and fears."

"Thou hast been round us, like a viewless spirit, Known only by the music on the air; The leaf or flowers which thou hast named inherit A beauty known but from thy breathing there: For thou didst on them fling thy strong emotion, The likeness from itself the fond heart gave; As planets from afar look down on ocean, And give their own sweet image to the wave."

"A general bond of union is the poet, By its immortal verse is language known, And for the sake of song do others know it— One glorious poet makes the world his own."

"Yet what is mind in woman, but revealing In sweet clear light the hidden world below, By quicker fancies and a keener feeling Than those around, the cold and careless, know?"

"The fable of Prometheus and the vulture Reveals the poet’s and the woman’s heart. Unkindly are they judged—unkindly treated— By careless tongues and by ungenerous words; While cruel sneer, and hard reproach, repeated, Jar the fine music of the spirit’s chords."

"Now the monarch must surrender All his golden state, Yet the mockeries of splendour On the pageant wait That attends him to the tomb. Music on the air is swelling, ’Tis the funeral song, As to his ancestral dwelling, Is he borne along. They must share life’s common doom. The kings of fair Golconda, Golconda’s ancient kings."

"What should the fruit of victory be ? What spoil should it command ?— Commerce upon the sweeping sea, And peace upon the land."

"What is the social world thou hast forsaken?— A scene of wrong and sorrow, guilt and guile ; Whence Love a long and last farewell has taken, Where friends can smile, and “murder while they smile.”"

"Within that lonely garden what happy hours went by, While we fancied that around us spread foreign sea and sky. Ah! the dreaming and the distant no longer haunt the mind We leave, in leaving childhood, life’s fairy-land behind."

"Round are the woods of the ancient oak, And pines that scorn at the woodman’s stroke ; And yet the axe is on its way, Those stately trees in the dust to lay."

"They have opened the quarries of lime and stone ; There is nothing that man will leave alone : He buildeth the house—he tilleth the soil ; No place is free from care and toil. …. Wo on our wretched and busy race. That will not leave Nature a resting-place. We roam over earth, we sail o’er the wave, Till there is not a quiet spot but the grave."

"Of Europe's childhood was the feudal age, When the world's sceptre was the sword; and power, Unfit for human weakness, wrong, and rage, Knew not that curb which waits a wiser hour."

"Our moral progress has a glorious scope, Much has the past by thought and labour done; Knowledge and Peace pursue the steps of Hope, Whose noblest victories are yet unwon."

"By the aqueduct, of old, Where the silver river rolled, Long since laid in ruins low— But there still the waters flow. Soon decayeth man's endeavour, Nature's works endure for ever."

"Sadly the captive o'er the flowers is bending, While her soft eye with sudden sorrow fills; They are not those that grew beneath her tending In the green valley of her native hills. …. What are the glittering trifles that surround her— What the rich shawl—and what the golden chain— Would she could break the fetters that have bound her, And see her household and her hills again!"

"Will not your giant columns yet behold The world's old age, enlightened, calm, and free; More glorious than the glories known of old— The spirit's placid rule o'er land and sea. All that the past has taught is not in vain— Wisdom is garnered up from centuries gone: Love, Hope, and Mind prepare a nobler reign Than ye have known—Cedars of Lebanon!"

"His home — our English poet's home — Amid these hills is made ; Here, with the morning, hath he come, There, with the night delayed. On all things is his memory cast, For every place wherein he past, Is with his mind arrayed, That, wandering in a summer hour, Asked wisdom of the leaf and flower."

"Until thy hand unlocked its store, What glorious music slept ! Music that can be hushed no more Was from our knowledge kept."

"The crowded city in its streets, The valley, in its green retreats, Alike thy words retain. What need hast thou of sculptured stone ?— Thy temple, is thy name alone."

"Yet thou art on thy course majestic keeping, Unruffled by the breath Of man's vain life or death, Calm as the heaven upon thy bosom sleeping. Still dost thou keep thy calm and onward motion, Amid the ancient ranks Of forests on thy banks, Till thou hast gained thy home—the mighty ocean."

"Already much for man has been effected; The weak and poor man's cause Is strengthened by the laws, The equal right, born with us all, respected."

"Do you see yon vessel riding, Anchored in our island bay, Like a sleeping sea-bird biding For the morrow’s onward way ? See her white wings folded round her As she rocks upon the deep; Slumber with a spell hath bound her, With a spell of peace and sleep."

"The mother takes her little child— Its face is like her own ; The cradle of her choice is wild— Why is it left alone ? The trampling of the buffalo Is heard among the reeds, And sweeps around the carrion-crow That amid carnage feeds."

"Pause, ere we blame the savage code That such strange horror keeps; Perhaps within her sad abode The mother sits and weeps, And thinks how oft those eyelids smiled, Whose close she may not see, And says, "Oh, would to God, my child, I might have died for thee !""

"Look on the crowded prison-gate— Instructive love and care In early life had saved the fate That waits on many there. Cold, selfish, shunning care and cost, The poor are left unknown ; I say, for every soul thus lost, We answer with our own."

"In the deep silence of the midnight hours, I call upon ye, oh ye viewless powers! Before whose presence mortal daring cowers."

"What of yon stately city, where are shrined The warrior’s and the poet’s wreath combined— All the high honours of the human mind! Her walls are bright with colours, whose fine dyes Embody shapes that seem from yonder skies, And in her scrolls the world’s deep wisdom lies. What of her future?—Through the silvery smoke I see the distant vision I invoke. These glorious walls have bowed to time’s dark yoke. I see a plain of desert sand extend Scattered with ruins, where the wild flowers bend, And the green ivy, like a last sad friend."

"Hence, ye dark Spirits! bear the dream away; To-morrow but repeateth yesterday; First, toil—then, desolation and decay. Life has one vast stern likeness in its gloom, We toil with hopes that must themselves consume— The wide world round us is one mighty tomb."

"I see the bright trout springing, Where the wave is dark yet clear, And a myriad flies are winging, As if to tempt him near. With the lucid waters blending, The willow shade yet floats, From beneath whose quiet bending I used to launch my boats."

"O, Lovely isle ! that, like a child, Art sleeping on the sea, Amid whose hair the wind is wild, And on whose cheek the sun has smiled, As there it loved to be."

"It is his hand—it is his words— Too well I know the scroll, Whose style, whose order, and whose shape Are treasured in my soul."

"A fearful thing, the granted wish— The very shape it takes, By some strange mockery of our hope, Another misery makes."

"Time measures many hours ; for me, He measured long and slow; I thought the night would never end, The day would never go."

"They come from the mountains, in thousands they come— There breatheth no trumpet, there beateth no drum: They march in such silence as suiteth the dead, Their herald the thunder that echoes their tread. The sun is midway in his morning advance, His beams kindle musket, and sabre, and lance; While beneath each white turban flows down the long hair; For the locks of the Druse are, like northern locks, fair."

"The falling of fountains—the slight summer rain— The voice of the dove, were less sweet than thy strain; Till stirred with delight, would her exquisite wings Beat time on the west wind, to echo thy strings."

"So like they are—as roses grow Self-same upon the self-same bough, While just some slight shades intervene, To mark a change more felt than seen— As like they are—as nature loth To make a difference, modelled both To the same shape—it was so fair That not a grace was left to spare."

"It is the past that maketh the ideal, Kindling the future with its onward ray, And o’er a world that else would be too real, Flinging the glory of the moral day."

"On the wind a murmur, Seems to float along, Soft as is the music Of remembered song. Bringing at the moment All that dwelt apart In the lone recesses Of the haunted heart. So upon her twilight wings Memory beareth graceful things, From the tales Arabian, From the old Arabian Nights."

"A thousand nameless years went by, As silent as their birth; The clouds that wandered o’er the sky Beheld no change on earth: With one unbroken chronicle, A thousand years left nought to tell."

"But here no tumult ever past, The wild wind brought no sound, Saving the mighty music cast By the dark pine-trees round; And Nature had one hour’s repose Amid the silence of the snows."

"During a considerable part of the year, the Choor is hoary with snow; and when moonlight falls upon the scene, an effect is produced as if floods of molten silver were poured over the surface. Moonlight in these regions assumes a novel charm. The rugged peaks, stern and chilling as they are, lose their awful character, and become brilliant as polished pearl; the trees, covered with icicles, seem formed of some rich spar; and the face of nature becoming wholly changed, presents the features of a world calm and tranquil, but still and deathlike. (Letitia Landon may have her friend Emma Roberts to thank for details of this description)"

"’Tis strange how often early years Will unexpected rise, And bring back soft and childlike tears To cold and world-worn eyes. Soft voices come upon the wind, Old songs and early prayers, And feel how much of good and kind Our weary life still spares."

"The day is yet rosy with wakening from sleep, The stars have one moment gone down in the deep, The flowers have not opened that hide in the grass, And the hares leave their print in the dew as they pass."

"Hope’s fairy arches cross human life’s dark river; Frail the support—while over it there hastens All the sweet beliefs that make the morning fair."

"Oh ! there are moments when the full heart, turning From this life, insufficient, vexed, and drear, Looks to the skies with an impatient yearning, And asks the morning for another sphere."

"Methinks a pleasant lesson Is given by the scene— That age alike and childhood Delight in what has been. They will make, those happy children, The old man’s heart their own— There never was a pleasure Could be enjoyed alone."

"What makes the poet? — Nothing but to feel More keenly than the common sense of feeling; To have the soul attuned to the appeal Of the dim music through all nature stealing."

"Life is a fable, with its lesson last ; Genius, too, has its fable and its moral: Of all the trees that down their shadows cast, Choose you a wreath from any but the laurel."

"Thy angel-nature was not made For struggle or for care; Thou wert too gentle and too good For Heaven long to spare. Thou wert but sent a little while To soothe and to sustain; The angels missed thee from their band And asked for thee again: But not till thou hadst given birth To many a holy thought on earth."

"Years have grown into centuries grey, The king and his people, where are they? Where are the temples of carved stone? Look in the dust—to dust they are gone. Five or six pillars alone remain Of the thousands that crowded that marble plain. The palm-tree that stood by that building of yore Standeth as green as it did before. But the dust is heaped o’er the works of men— And so it hath been, and will be again."

"There is a lovely English sound Upon the English air, It comes when else had silence found Its quiet empire there."

"How still it is ! the bee — the bird — Float by on noiseless wing. There sounds no step — there comes no word, There seems no living thing. But still upon the soft west wind These bells come sweeping by, Leaving familiar thoughts behind, Familiar, and yet high."

"Men gathered fast upon the sands With eager aid—in vain— What is might of human hands To struggle with the main?"

"Hamooda holds a feast to-night — Fill ye the lamps with fragrant light ; Burn, in the twilight's dewy time, The mastic, rosemary, and thyme; And scatter round the festal chamber Oils from the rose, the musk, the amber."

"It is a fearful thing to live, yet be That which is scarcely life — the spirit fled — Death at the heart — our nobler self is dead — The reasoning and responsible, while we Live, like the birds around, unconsciously. God ! in thy mercy keep us from such doom, Let not our mind precede us to our tomb !"

"Too much this weary world of ours Has fallen since the fall ; And low desires, and care, and crime. Hold empire over all. Yet not the less it is our part To do the best we can : A better faith — a better fate Man yet may work for man."

"Stately rose their city — Many towns are fair, None rose like Granada In the morning air. There the Moorish princes swayed Empire which themselves had made. Like a dream their memory dwells Where the carved marble tells Of the Moslem rule in Spain."

"Honoured be each story Brought from other days, But for them there were no flowers On our world-worn ways. Every land, and every heart, Turn back to their earlier part. Let old songs and stories live While the fanciful they give To the Moslem rule in Spain."

"Too much by small low interests bound. We track our selfish way, Careless if hope to-day still takes Its tone from yesterday. We look upon our daily path, We do not look beyond, Forgetful of the brotherhood In nature's mighty bond."

"The future doth avenge the past— Now, for thy future's sake, Oh, England ! for the guilty past A deep atonement make. The slave is given to thy charge, He hopes from thee alone ; And thou, for every soul so given, Must answer with thine own."

"The winds are stirred with tumult — on the air Sound drum and trumpet, atabal and gong — Strong voices loud uplift a barbarous song. Vast is the gathering — while the priests declare The seven-headed god is passing there. On roll his chariot-wheels, while every roll From prostrate bodies crushes forth a soul : Rejoicing such last agony to bear."

"It is a little azure bird, It has a plaintive cry, It singeth mournful to the eve, When none beside are nigh. …. And for the love it beareth them, The natives hold it true, That whosoever kills this bird, Himself must perish too."

"Of the vacant temple Little now remains, Lowly are the statues, Lowly are the fanes, Filled with worshippers no more. Heavily the creeper Traces its green line Round the fallen altar, Now no more divine— As it was in days of yore, In the days of stately Carthage, The ocean’s earliest queen. …. Empire still has followed The revolving sun; Earth’s great onward progress In the East begun— Ruins, deserts, now are there. Downfall waits on triumph: Is such fate in store For our glorious islands? Will our English shore Lie as desolate and bare As the shores of fallen Carthage, The ocean’s former queen?"

"When I see Homes, of Beauty and of Splendour, I, that am merely rich in being loved, By one whose wealth is in a heart too tender, To let me share his poverty unmoved: Sighing, I marvel, what such chance of fortune, Can add too happiness, or take away; And whether all the cloying gifts, importune, Or bless the wealthy, through the livelong day!"

"Old Mother Goose,"

"Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ᾽ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι."

"Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή."

"Ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν."

"Παρὰ θῖνα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης."

"Καὶ γάρ τ' ὄναρ ἐκ Διός ἐστιν."

"Ἔπεα πτερόεντα."

"Ὅς κε θεοῖς ἐπιπείθηται μάλα τ' ἔκλυον αὐτοῦ."

"Οἰνοβαρές, κυνὸς ὄμματ' ἔχων, κραδίην δ' ἐλάφοιο."

"Τοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ γλώσσης μέλιτος γλυκίων ῥέεν αὐδή."

"Οὐδέ τι οἶδε νοῆσαι ἅμα πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω."

"Ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς."

"Ἦ καὶ κυανέῃσιν ἐπ' ὀφρύσι νεῦσε Κρονίων· ἀμβρόσιαι δ' ἄρα χαῖται ἐπεῤῥώσαντο ἄνακτος κρατὸς ἀπ' ἀθανάτοιο· μέγαν δ' ἐλέλιξεν Ὄλυμπον."

"Ἄσβεστος δ' ἄρ' ἐνῶρτο γέλως μακάρεσσι θεοῖσιν ὡς ἴδον Ἥφαιστον διὰ δώματα ποιπνύοντα."

"Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη· εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω, εἷς βασιλεύς."

"Μένεα πνείοντες."

"Μή μοι δῶρ' ἐρατὰ πρόφερε χρυσέης Ἀφροδίτης· οὔ τοι ἀπόβλητ' ἐστὶ θεῶν ἐρικυδέα δῶρα ὅσσά κεν αὐτοὶ δῶσιν, ἑκὼν δ' οὐκ ἄν τις ἕλοιτο."

"Αἰεὶ δ' ὁπλοτέρων ἀνδρῶν φρένες ἠερέθονται· οἷς δ' ὁ γέρων μετέῃσιν ἅμα πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω λεύσσει, ὅπως ὄχ' ἄριστα μετ' ἀμφοτέροισι γένηται."

"Οὐ νέμεσις Τρῶας καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας Ἀχαιοὺς τοιῇδ' ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν· αἰνῶς ἀθανάτῃσι θεῇς εἰς ὦπα ἔοικεν."

"Ἀλλ' ὅτε δὴ ὄπα τε μεγάλην ἐκ στήθεος εἵη καὶ ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα χειμερίῃσιν, ἂν ἔπειτ' Ὀδυσῆΐ γ' ἐρίσσειε βροτὸς ἄλλος· οὐ τότε γ' ὧδ' Ὀδυσῆος ἀγασσάμεθ' εἶδος ἰδόντες."

"Ἠέλιός θ', ὃς πάντ' ἐφορᾷς καὶ πάντ' ἐπακούεις."

"Ἔσσεται ἦμαρ ὅτ' ἄν ποτ' ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἱρὴ καὶ Πρίαμος καὶ λαὸς ἐϋμμελίω Πριάμοιο."

"Τῷ μὲν κλέος, ἄμμι δὲ πένθος."

"Ἀλλ' οὔ πως ἅμα πάντα θεοὶ δόσαν ἀνθρώποισιν."

"Τὸν δ' ἄρ' ὑπόδρα ἰδὼν προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς· Ἀτρεΐδη ποῖόν σε ἔπος φύγεν ἕρκος ὀδόντων."

"Ἥ τ' ὀλίγη μὲν πρῶτα κορύσσεται, αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα οὐρανῷ ἐστήριξε κάρη καὶ ἐπὶ χθονὶ βαίνει."

"Ὅττι μάλ' οὐ δηναιὸς ὃς ἀθανάτοισι μάχηται, οὐδέ τί μιν παῖδες ποτὶ γούνασι παππάζουσιν ἐκ πολέμοιο καὶ αἰνῆς δηϊοτῆτος."

"Μηδὲ θεοῖσιν ἶσ' ἔθελε φρονέειν, ἐπεὶ οὔ ποτε φῦλον ὁμοῖον ἀθανάτων τε θεῶν χαμαὶ ἐρχομένων τ' ἀνθρώπων."

"Τοίω τὼ χείρεσσιν ὑπ' Αἰνείαο δαμέντε καππεσέτην, ἐλάτῃσιν ἐοικότες ὑψηλῇσι."

"Στέντορι εἰσαμένη μεγαλήτορι χαλκεοφώνῳ, ὃς τόσον αὐδήσασχ' ὅσον ἄλλοι πεντήκοντα."

"Εἰ δέ τίς ἐσσι βροτῶν οἳ ἀρούρης καρπὸν ἔδουσιν, ἆσσον ἴθ' ὥς κεν θᾶσσον ὀλέθρου πείραθ' ἵκηαι."

"Οἵη περ φύλλων γενεὴ τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν. φύλλα τὰ μέν τ' ἄνεμος χαμάδις χέει, ἄλλα δέ θ' ὕλη τηλεθόωσα φύει, ἔαρος δ' ἐπιγίγνεται ὥρη· ὣς ἀνδρῶν γενεὴ ἣ μὲν φύει ἣ δ' ἀπολήγει."

"Αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι ἄλλων."

"Ὣς ἄρα φωνήσαντε καθ' ἵππων ἀΐξαντε χεῖράς τ' ἀλλήλων λαβέτην καὶ πιστώσαντο· ἔνθ' αὖτε Γλαύκῳ Κρονίδης φρένας ἐξέλετο Ζεύς, ὃς πρὸς Τυδεΐδην Διομήδεα τεύχε' ἄμειβε χρύσεα χαλκείων, ἑκατόμβοι' ἐννεαβοίων."

"Ἀνδρὶ δὲ κεκμηῶτι μένος μέγα οἶνος ἀέξει."

"Νίκη δ᾽ ἐπαμείβεται ἄνδρας."

"Καί ποτέ τις εἴποι πατρός γ' ὅδε πολλὸν ἀμείνων."

"Δακρυόεν γελάσασα."

"Μοῖραν δ' οὔ τινά φημι πεφυγμένον ἔμμεναι ἀνδρῶν, οὐ κακὸν οὐδὲ μὲν ἐσθλόν, ἐπὴν τὰ πρῶτα γένηται."

"Αἴδεσθεν μὲν ἀνήνασθαι, δεῖσαν δ' ὑποδέχθαι."

"Ἀλλ' ὑμεῖς μὲν πάντες ὕδωρ καὶ γαῖα γένοισθε ἥμενοι αὖθι ἕκαστοι ἀκήριοι ἀκλεὲς αὔτως."

"Μήκων δ' ὡς ἑτέρωσε κάρη βάλεν, ἥ τ' ἐνὶ κήπῳ καρπῷ βριθομένη νοτίῃσί τε εἰαρινῇσιν, ὣς ἑτέρωσ' ἤμυσε κάρη πήληκι βαρυνθέν."

"Ἐν δ' ἔπεσ' Ὠκεανῷ λαμπρὸν φάος ἠελίοιο ἕλκον νύκτα μέλαιναν ἐπὶ ζείδωρον ἄρουραν."

"Ὡς δ' ὅτ' ἐν οὐρανῷ ἄστρα φαεινὴν ἀμφὶ σελήνην φαίνετ' ἀριπρεπέα, ὅτε τ' ἔπλετο νήνεμος αἰθήρ· ἔκ τ' ἔφανεν πᾶσαι σκοπιαὶ καὶ πρώονες ἄκροι καὶ νάπαι· οὐρανόθεν δ' ἄρ' ὑπεῤῥάγη ἄσπετος αἰθήρ, πάντα δὲ εἴδεται ἄστρα, γέγηθε δέ τε φρένα ποιμήν."

"Ἀφρήτωρ ἀθέμιστος ἀνέστιός ἐστιν ἐκεῖνος ὃς πολέμου ἔραται ἐπιδημίου ὀκρυόεντος."

"Ἐχθρὸς γάρ μοι κεῖνος ὁμῶς Ἀΐδαο πύλῃσιν ὅς χ' ἕτερον μὲν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ἄλλο δὲ εἴπῃ."

"Κάτθαν' ὁμῶς ὅ τ' ἀεργὸς ἀνὴρ ὅ τε πολλὰ ἐοργώς."

"Ἀνδρὸς δὲ ψυχὴ πάλιν ἐλθεῖν οὔτε λεϊστὴ οὔθ' ἑλετή, ἐπεὶ ἄρ κεν ἀμείψεται ἕρκος ὀδόντων."

"εἰ μέν κ᾽ αὖθι μένων Τρώων πόλιν ἀμφιμάχωμαι, ὤλετο μέν μοι νόστος, ἀτὰρ κλέος ἄφθιτον ἔσται."

"Μύθων τε ῥητῆρ' ἔμεναι πρηκτῆρά τε ἔργων."

"Καὶ γάρ τε λιταί εἰσι Διὸς κοῦραι μεγάλοιο χωλαί τε ῥυσαί τε παραβλῶπές τ' ὀφθαλμώ, αἵ ῥά τε καὶ μετόπισθ' ἄτης ἀλέγουσι κιοῦσαι."

"Ἐπὶ ξυροῦ ἵσταται ἀκμῆς ...ὄλεθρος...Ἀχαιοῖς ἠὲ βιῶναι."

"Ἰητρὸς γὰρ ἀνὴρ πολλῶν ἀντάξιος ἄλλων ἰούς τ' ἐκτάμνειν ἐπί τ' ἤπια φάρμακα πάσσειν."

"Εἷς οἰωνὸς ἄριστος ἀμύνεσθαι περὶ πάτρης."

"Ὦ πέπον εἰ μὲν γὰρ πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε αἰεὶ δὴ μέλλοιμεν ἀγήρω τ' ἀθανάτω τε ἔσσεσθ', οὔτέ κεν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ πρώτοισι μαχοίμην οὔτέ κε σὲ στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν· νῦν δ' ἔμπης γὰρ κῆρες ἐφεστᾶσιν θανάτοιο μυρίαι, ἃς οὐκ ἔστι φυγεῖν βροτὸν οὐδ' ὑπαλύξαι, ἴομεν ἠέ τῳ εὖχος ὀρέξομεν ἠέ τις ἡμῖν."

"Φράξαντες δόρυ δουρί, σάκος σάκεϊ προθελύμνῳ· ἀσπὶς ἄρ' ἀσπίδ' ἔρειδε, κόρυς κόρυν, ἀνέρα δ' ἀνήρ."

"Τοὶ δ' ἔριδος κρατερῆς καὶ ὁμοιΐου πτολέμοιο πεῖραρ ἐπαλλάξαντες ἐπ' ἀμφοτέροισι τάνυσσαν ἄῤῥηκτόν τ' ἄλυτόν τε, τὸ πολλῶν γούνατ' ἔλυσεν."

"Ἄλλῳ μὲν γὰρ ἔδωκε θεὸς πολεμήϊα ἔργα, ἄλλῳ δ' ὀρχηστύν, ἑτέρῳ κίθαριν καὶ ἀοιδήν, ἄλλῳ δ' ἐν στήθεσσι τιθεῖ νόον εὐρύοπα Ζεὺς ἐσθλόν, τοῦ δέ τε πολλοὶ ἐπαυρίσκοντ' ἄνθρωποι."

"Οὐ γάρ τις νέμεσις φυγέειν κακόν, οὐδ' ἀνὰ νύκτα. βέλτερον ὃς φεύγων προφύγῃ κακὸν ἠὲ ἁλώῃ."

"Ἔνθ' ἔνι μὲν φιλότης, ἐν δ' ἵμερος, ἐν δ' ὀαριστὺς πάρφασις, ἥ τ' ἔκλεψε νόον πύκα περ φρονεόντων."

"Ἔνθ' Ὕπνῳ ξύμβλητο κασιγνήτῳ Θανάτοιο."

"Ὕπνε ἄναξ πάντων τε θεῶν πάντων τ' ἀνθρώπων."

"Ῥεῖα δ' ἀρίγνωτος Διὸς ἀνδράσι γίγνεται ἀλκή."

"Οὔ οἱ ἀεικὲς ἀμυνομένῳ περὶ πάτρης τεθνάμεν."

"Αἰδομένων δ' ἀνδρῶν πλέονες σόοι ἠὲ πέφανται· φευγόντων δ' οὔτ' ἂρ κλέος ὄρνυται οὔτέ τις ἀλκή."

"Ἀλλ' εἰ δή ῥα τότε βλάπτε φρένας εὐρύοπα Ζεὺς ἡμετέρας, νῦν αὐτὸς ἐποτρύνει καὶ ἀνώγει."

"Ἐν γὰρ χερσὶ τέλος πολέμου, ἐπέων δ' ἐνὶ βουλῇ."

"Πέμπε δέ μιν πομποῖσιν ἅμα κραιπνοῖσι φέρεσθαι ὕπνῳ καὶ θανάτῳ διδυμάοσιν, οἵ ῥά μιν ὦκα θήσουσ' ἐν Λυκίης εὐρείης πίονι δήμῳ."

"Ἀλλ' αἰεί τε Διὸς κρείσσων νόος ἠέ περ ἀνδρῶν."

"Ὃ δ' ἐν στροφάλιγγι κονίης κεῖτο μέγας μεγαλωστί, λελασμένος ἱπποσυνάων."

"I am foremost of all the Trojan warriors to stave the day of bondage from off them; as for you, vultures shall devour you here."

"I say further, and lay my saying to your heart, you too shall live but for a little season; death and the day of your doom are close upon you, and they will lay you low by the hand of Achilles son of Aiakos."

"Ῥεχθὲν δέ τε νήπιος ἔγνω."

"Οὐ μὲν γάρ τί πού ἐστιν ὀϊζυρώτερον ἀνδρὸς πάντων, ὅσσά τε γαῖαν ἔπι πνείει τε καὶ ἕρπει."

"Ἥσω γὰρ καὶ ἐγώ, τὰ δέ κεν Διὶ πάντα μελήσει."

"Ὡς ἔρις ἔκ τε θεῶν ἔκ τ' ἀνθρώπων ἀπόλοιτο καὶ χόλος, ὅς τ' ἐφέηκε πολύφρονά περ χαλεπῆναι, ὅς τε πολὺ γλυκίων μέλιτος καταλειβομένοιο ἀνδρῶν ἐν στήθεσσιν ἀέξεται ἠΰτε καπνός."

"Ἀλλ' οὐ Ζεὺς ἄνδρεσσι νοήματα πάντα τελευτᾷ."

"Θεὸς διὰ πάντα τελευτᾷ."

"Οὐ γὰρ ἀνὴρ πρόπαν ἦμαρ ἐς ἠέλιον καταδύντα ἄκμηνος σίτοιο δυνήσεται ἄντα μάχεσθαι."

"Στρεπτὴ δὲ γλῶσσ' ἐστὶ βροτῶν, πολέες δ' ἔνι μῦθοι παντοῖοι, ἐπέων δὲ πολὺς νομὸς ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα."

"Ἀλλ' ἔπι τοι καὶ ἐμοὶ θάνατος καὶ μοῖρα κραταιή· ἔσσεται ἢ ἠὼς ἢ δείλη ἢ μέσον ἦμαρ ὁππότε τις καὶ ἐμεῖο Ἄρῃ ἐκ θυμὸν ἕληται ἢ ὅ γε δουρὶ βαλὼν ἢ ἀπὸ νευρῆφιν ὀϊστῷ."

"Ἐννοσίγαι' οὐκ ἄν με σαόφρονα μυθήσαιο ἔμμεναι, εἰ δὴ σοί γε βροτῶν ἕνεκα πτολεμίξω δειλῶν, οἳ φύλλοισιν ἐοικότες ἄλλοτε μέν τε ζαφλεγέες τελέθουσιν ἀρούρης καρπὸν ἔδοντες, ἄλλοτε δὲ φθινύθουσιν ἀκήριοι."

"Οὐ μέν πως νῦν ἔστιν ἀπὸ δρυὸς οὐδ᾿ ἀπὸ πέτρης τῷ ὀαριζέμεναι, ἅ τε παρθένος ἠίθεός τε, παρθένος ἠίθεός τ᾿ ὀαρίζετον ἀλλήλοιιν."

"Ὡς οὐκ ἔστι λέουσι καὶ ἀνδράσιν ὅρκια πιστά, οὐδὲ λύκοι τε καὶ ἄρνες ὁμόφρονα θυμὸν ἔχουσιν."

"Νῦν αὖτέ με μοῖρα κιχάνει. μὴ μὰν ἀσπουδί γε καὶ ἀκλειῶς ἀπολοίμην, ἀλλὰ μέγα ῥέξας τι καὶ ἐσσομένοισι πυθέσθαι."

"Μή με κύον γούνων γουνάζεο μὴ δὲ τοκήων."

"Ὢ πόποι ἦ ῥά τίς ἐστι καὶ εἰν Ἀΐδαο δόμοισι ψυχὴ καὶ εἴδωλον, ἀτὰρ φρένες οὐκ ἔνι πάμπαν."

"Μήτι τοι δρυτόμος μέγ' ἀμείνων ἠὲ βίηφι· μήτι δ' αὖτε κυβερνήτης ἐνὶ οἴνοπι πόντῳ νῆα θοὴν ἰθύνει ἐρεχθομένην ἀνέμοισι· μήτι δ' ἡνίοχος περιγίγνεται ἡνιόχοιο."

"Τλητὸν γὰρ Μοῖραι θυμὸν θέσαν ἀνθρώποισιν."

"Ἄγχι δ' ἄρα στὰς ... χερσὶν Ἀχιλλῆος λάβε γούνατα καὶ κύσε χεῖρας δεινὰς ἀνδροφόνους, αἵ οἱ πολέας κτάνον υἷας."

"Ἔτλην δ' οἷ' οὔ πώ τις ἐπιχθόνιος βροτὸς ἄλλος, ἀνδρὸς παιδοφόνοιο ποτὶ στόμα χεῖρ' ὀρέγεσθαι."

"Ἄλγεα δ' ἔμπης ἐν θυμῷ κατακεῖσθαι ἐάσομεν ἀχνύμενοί περ· οὐ γάρ τις πρῆξις πέλεται κρυεροῖο γόοιο· ὡς γὰρ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι ζώειν ἀχνυμένοις· αὐτοὶ δέ τ' ἀκηδέες εἰσί."

"Καὶ σὲ γέρον τὸ πρὶν μὲν ἀκούομεν ὄλβιον εἶναι."

"The Iliad. I remember feeling electrified by that. In a way that I just wanted to talk about it. I carried that text with me everywhere, and it's become such a big influence in how I think of writing. (NANCY: Was it the war story or the relationships?) MM: The war. I still o back to the way Homer depicts the battles, and I remember sitting there glued to this and feeling my heart race, and it felt like a light bulb was going on in my head. I think what Homer was doing with that, what felt so electrifying, was he was naming every single person, and he was calling out their history and who they were, whose child, what they were good at-like describing Hector as "Breaker of Horses.". I thought, This is how we need to think of conflict, and it brought to mind all the questions I had about the revolution in Ethiopia and the people who kept disappearing; or people knew who were jailed and nobody wanted to talk about them or name them. But here was a text that was actually naming them, and it was pivotal for me in understanding what literature could do."

"“Love,” Asa said, “is like a pigeon shitting over a crowd.” “How so?” “Where it lands hasn’t got much to do with who deserves it.”"

"Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, Hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!"

"When love's well-timed 'tis not a fault to love; The strong, the brave, the virtuous, and the wise, Sink in the soft captivity together."

"When love once pleads admission to our hearts, (In spite of all the virtue we can boast), The woman that deliberates is lost."

"We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life."

"Who sings of all of Love's eternity Who shines so bright In all the songs of Love's unending spells? Holy lightning strikes all that's evil Teaching us to love for goodness sake. Hear the music of Love Eternal Teaching us to reach for goodness sake."

"If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls."

"Love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free."

"Σχέτλι᾽ Ἔρως, μέγα πῆμα, μέγα στύγος ἀνθρώποισιν, ἐκ σέθεν οὐλόμεναί τ᾽ ἔριδες στοναχαί τε γόοι τε, ἄλγεά τ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖσιν ἀπείρονα τετρήχασιν."

"Alas! is even love too weak To unlock the heart, and let it speak? Are even lovers powerless to reveal To one another what indeed they feel? I knew the mass of men conceal'd Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd They would by other men be met With blank indifference, or with blame reproved; I knew they lived and moved Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest Of men, and alien to themselves — and yet The same heart beats in every human breast!"

"Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night."

"What love will make you do All the things that we accept Be the things that we regret"

"Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die."

"Ask not of me, love, what is love? Ask what is good of God above; Ask of the great sun what is light; Ask what is darkness of the night; Ask sin of what may be forgiven; Ask what is happiness of heaven; Ask what is folly of the crowd; Ask what is fashion of the shroud; Ask what is sweetness of thy kiss; Ask of thyself what beauty is."

"Could I love less, I should be happier now."

"I cannot love as I have loved, And yet I know not why; It is the one great woe of life To feel all feeling die."

"Love spends his all, and still hath store."

"The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love."

"Bright are the stars that shine Dark is the sky I know this love of mine Will never die And I love her"

"Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a heaven in hell’s despair."

"Man, you got to have love just to set it straight Take control of your mind and meditate Let your soul gravitate to the love y'all"

"If you never know truth then you never know love."

"The mightiest love was granted him Love that does not expect to be loved."

"If thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile — her look — her way Of speaking gently, — for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" — For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee, — and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, — A creature might forget to weep, who fbore Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity."

"I would not be a rose upon the wall A queen might stop at, near the palace-door, To say to a courtier, "Pluck that rose for me, It's prettier than the rest." O Romney Leigh! I'd rather far be trodden by his foot, Than lie in a great queen's bosom."

"But I love you, sir: And when a woman says she loves a man, The man must hear her, though he love her not."

"For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, And hope and fear (believe the aged friend), Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,— How love might be, hath been indeed, and is."

"Loveliest of lovely things are they, On earth, that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower."

"Every morning I shall concern myself anew about the boundary Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No And pressing forward honor reality.We cannot avoid Using power, Cannot escape the compulsion To afflict the world, So let us, cautious in diction And mighty in contradiction, Love powerfully."

"We needed you To love us too. We wait for your move."

"Only tragedy allows the release Of love and grief never normally seen. I didn't want to let them see me weep, I didn't want to let them see me weak, But I know I have shown That I stand at the gates alone."

"I needed you To love me too. I wait for your move."

"All the love, all the love, All the love we should have given. All the love, all the love, All the love you could have given. All the love..."

"Do you know what I really need? I need love love love love love, yeah!"

"The light Begin to bleed, Begin to breathe, Begin to speak. D'you know what? I love you better now."

"We let it in We give it out And in the end What's it all about? It must be love."

"We used to say "Ah Hell, we're young" But now we see that life is sad And so is love."

"What am I singing? A song of seeds The food of love. Eat the music."

"Excuse me I'm sorry to bother you, But don't I know you? There's just something about you. Haven't we met before?We've been in love forever."

"There's someone who's loved you forever but you don't know it. You might feel it and just not show it."

"I love my Beloved, ooh, All and everywhere, Only the fools blew it. You and me Knew life itself is Breathing..."

"Love in your hearts as idly burns As fire in antique Roman urns."

"Love is a boy by poets styl'd: Then spare the rod and spoil the child."

"What mad lover ever dy'd, To gain a soft and gentle bride? Or for a lady tender-hearted, In purling streams or hemp departed?"

"Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band, Let sage or cynic prattle as he will, These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill."

"The cold in clime are cold in blood, Their love can scarce deserve the name."

"Why did she love him? Curious fool!—be still— Is human love the growth of human will?"

"And to his eye There was but one beloved face on earth, And that was shining on him."

"She knew she was by him beloved,—she knew For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart Was darken'd with her shadow."

"Who loves, raves—'tis youth's frenzy—but the cure Is bitterer still."

"O! that the Desert were my dwelling place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her!"

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence: man may range The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart, Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart, And few there are whom these cannot estrange; Men have all these resources, we but one, To love again, and be again undone."

"Alas! the love of women! it is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing."

"In her first passion woman loves her lover; In all the others, all she loves is love."

"I fall in love too easily I fall in love too fast I fall in love too terribly hard For love to ever last My heart should be well-schooled Cause I've been fooled in the past But still I fall in love so easily I fall in love too fast"

"Amor é um fogo que arde sem se ver, É ferida que dói, e não se sente; É um contentamento descontente, É dor que desatina sem doer. É um não querer mais que bem querer; É um andar solitário entre a gente; É nunca contentar-se de contente; É um cuidar que ganha em se perder. É querer estar preso por vontade; É servir a quem vence, o vencedor; É ter com quem nos mata, lealdade. Mas como causar pode seu favor Nos corações humanos amizade, Se tão contrário a si é o mesmo Amor?"

"What have I done? What horrid crime committed? To me the worst of crimes—outliv'd my liking."

"There are no signs, There are no stars aligned, No amulets no charms, To bring you back to my arms. There's just this human heart. That's built with this human fault. What was your question? Love is the answer."

"Years! Years, ye shall mix with me! Ye shall grow a part Of the laughing Sea; Of the moaning heart Of the glittered wave Of the sun-gleam's dart In the ocean-grave. Fair, cold, and faithless wert thou, my own! For that I love Thy heart of stone! From the heights above To the depths below, Where dread things move, There is naught can show A life so trustless! Proud be thy crown! Ruthless, like none, save the Sea, alone!"

"And sometimes when I am weary, When the path is thorny and Wild, I'll look back to the Eyes in the twilight, Back to the eyes that smiled.And pray that a wreath like a rainbow May slip from the beautiful past, And Crown me again with the sweet, strong love And keep me, and hold me fast."

"When they lay down beside me I made my confession to them. They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem. If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn, They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem."

"I swept the marble chambers, But you sent me down below. You kept me from believing Until you let me know: That I am not the one who loves — It's love that chooses me. When hatred with his package comes, You forbid delivery."

"The light came through the window, Straight from the sun above, And so inside my little room There plunged the rays of Love. In streams of light I clearly saw The dust you seldom see, Out of which the Nameless makes A Name for one like me."

"Anything that's worth havin' Sure enough worth fighting for. Quittin's out of the question When it gets tough, gotta fight some more. ... We gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love. If its woth having, it's worth fightin for."

"Now everyday ain't gonna be no picnic Love ain't no walk in the park All you can do is make the best of it now Can't be afraid of the dark Just know that you're not in this thing alone There's always a place in me that you can call home."

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame."

"And in Life's noisiest hour, There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee, The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within."

"And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you, How oft! I bless the Lot, that made me love you."

"Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree; Oh the joys that came down shower-like, Of friendship, love, and liberty, Ere I was old!"

"In many ways doth the full heart reveal The presence of the love it would conceal."

"To know, to esteem, to love, and then to part, Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart!"

"I have heard of reasons manifold Why Love must needs be blind, But this the best of all I hold,— His eyes are in his mind."

"Farewell, farewell! but this I tell To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast."

"Now here we are, The two of us, And nothing's gonna come between us again. Forever love, I feel you're with me, You're the sun that chases away the rain. I cherish all the love you bring, It's here forever and a day, I love you more than anything, I can't throw that away. My Love. [...] For the memory of you, For all the times we shared together, For all we've been through, Forever Love."

"Our love is principle, and has its root In reason, is judicious, manly, free."

"Mine to the core of the heart, my beauty! Mine, all mine, and for love, not duty: Love given willingly, full and free, Love for love's sake — as mine to thee. Duty's a slave that keeps the keys, But Love, the master, goes in and out Of his goodly chambers with song and shout, Just as he please — just as he please."

"I was searching for an answer In a world so full of strangers But what I found was never really enough Now that I've found you I'm looking in the eyes of love (In the eyes of love) Baby you've been good to me Oh, so much more that you could know, yeah, yeah I never thought that I would find Someone who's so sweet and kind Like you... Please believe me when I say This time I won't run away I swear by all the heaven's stars above Now that I've found you I'm looking in the eyes of love Looking in the eyes of love... I can see forever, yeah... I can see you and me Walking in this world together Oh, my heart's found a hope... I've been dreaming of... Now that I've found you I'm looking in the eyes of love"

"and nothing quite so least as truth —i say though hate were why men breathe— because my father lived his soul love is the whole and more than all"

"Love is more thicker than forget …it is more sane and sunly and more it cannot die than all the sky which only is higher than the sky"

"Measureless our pure living complete love whose doom is beauty and its fate to grow"

"'And liars kill their kind but' her,my 'love creates love only' our"

"Nothing false and possible is love (who's imagined, therefore limitless) love's to giving as to keeping's give; as yes is to if, love is to yes"

"True lovers in each happening of their hearts live longer than all which and every who;"

"Yes is a pleasant country… love is a deeper season than reason"

"I feel that(false and true are merely to know) Love only has ever been, is, and will ever be, So"

"No evil is so worse than worst you fall in hate with love —human one mortally immortal I can turn immense all time's because to why"

"Lovers alone wear sunlight"

"The whole truth… sings only —and all lovers are the song"

"it's love by whom (my beautiful friend) the gift to live is without until: …love was and shall be this only truth (a dream of a deed, born not to die)"

"The axis of the universe —love"

"I somehow see what's beautiful In things that are ephemeral I'm my only friend of mine And love is just a piece of time in the world in the world. And I couldn't help but fall in love again."

"Old habits die hard when you got, when you got a sentimental heart Piece of the puzzle, you're my missing part Oh what can you do with a sentimental heart?"

"Love is not a feeling to pass away Like the balmy breath of a Summer's day....... Love is not a passion of earthly mould As a thirst for honour, or fame, or gold"

"A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought with gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was a fiery flame: which when I did behold I fell a-weeping and I cried, "Sweet youth, Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove These pleasant realms? I pray thee speak me sooth What is thy name?" He said, "My name is Love." Then straight the first did turn himself to me And cried, "He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame." Then sighing said the other, "Have thy will, "I am the Love that dare not speak its name.""

"Love is a passion Which kindles honor into noble acts."

"Love taught him shame, and shame with love at strife Soon taught the sweet civilities of life."

"Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are."

"My heart's so full of joy, That I shall do some wild extravagance Of love in public, and the foolish world, Which knows not tenderness, will think me mad."

"But is it what we love, or how we love, That makes true good?"

"'Tis what I love determines how I love."

"Women know no perfect love: Loving the strong, they can forsake the strong; Man clings because the being whom he loves Is weak and needs him."

"Lady of silences Calm and distressed Torn and most whole Rose of memory Rose of forgetfulness Exhausted and life-giving Worried reposeful The single Rose Is now the Garden Where all loves end Terminate torment Of love unsatisfied The greater torment Of love satisfied End of the endless Journey to no end Conclusion of all that Is inconclusible Speech without word and Word of no speech Grace to the Mother For the Garden Where all love ends."

"Can we only love Something created in our own imaginations? Are we all in fact unloving and unloveable? Then one is alone, and if one is alone Then lover and beloved are equally unreal And the dreamer is no more real than his dreams."

"Desire itself is movement Not in itself desirable; Love is itself unmoving, Only the cause and end of movement, Timeless, and undesiring Except in the aspect of time Caught in the form of limitation Between un-being and being."

"Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter. Old men ought to be explorers Here or there does not matter We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and the empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise."

"Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire."

"Old sundial, you stand here for Time: For Love, the vine that round your base Its tendrils twines, and dares to climb And lay one flower-capped spray in grace Without the asking on your cold Unsmiling and unfrowning face."

"Upon your shattered ruins where This vine will flourish still, as rare, As fresh, as fragrant as of old. Love will not crumble."

"Dropt tears have hastened your decay And brought you one step nigher death; And you have heard, unthrilled, unmoved, The music of Love's golden breath And seen the light in eyes that loved. You think you hold the core and kernel Of all the world beneath your crust, Old dial? But when you lie in dust, This vine will bloom, strong, green, and proved. Love is eternal."

"Prometheus, I have no Titan's might, Yet I, too, must each dusk renew my heart, For daytime's vulture talons tear apart The tender alcoves built by love at night."

"One thing is sure, O comrades, that the love That fights to keep us rooted in the earth, But also urges us to dare the stars, This irresistible, this ancient power Wedged in the soul, unshakable, is the light That burns our roots and leaves us free for Space."

"The way is open, comrades, free as Space Alone is free. The only gold is love, A coin that we have minted from the light Of others who have cared for us on Earth And who have deposited in us the power That nerves our nerves to seize the burning stars."

"Yes, we hope to seed a new, rich earth. We hope to breed a race of men whose power Dwells in hearts as open as all Space Itself, who ask for nothing but the light That rinses the heart of hate so that the stars Above will be below when man has Love."

"Just one step at a time And closer to destiny I knew at a glance There'd always be a chance for me With someone I could live for Nowhere I would rather be. Is your love strong enough Like a rock in the sea? Am I asking too much? Is your love strong enough?"

"I love love I love being in love I don't care what it does to me"

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge — That myth is more potent than history. I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts — That hope always triumphs over experience — That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."

"Love the battle between chaos and imagination. Remember: Acting is living truthfully in imaginary circumstances. Remember: Acting is the way to live the greatest number of lives. Remember: Acting is the same as real life, lived intentionally. Never forget: The Fruit is out on the end of the limb. Go there."

"Car, vois-tu, chaque jour je t'aime davantage, Aujourd'hui plus qu'hier et bien moins que demain."

"Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason."

"New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return."

"Lovers to-day and for all time Preserve the meaning of my rhyme: Love is not kindly nor yet grim But does to you as you to him."

"Then all you lovers have good heed Vex not young Love in word or deed: Love never leaves an unpaid debt, He will not pardon nor forget."

"How long will I love you? As long as stars are above you, And longer if I may"

"Che mai Non v'avere ò provate, ò possedute."

": Far worse it is To lose than never to have tasted bliss."

"Love of consciousness evokes the same in response Love of feeling evokes the opposite Love of body depends only on type and polarity."

"I need your love I need your time When everything's wrong You make it right I feel so high I come alive I need to be free with you tonight I need your love"

"When I'm not near the girl I love, I love the girl I'm near."

"Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb. Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom. Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire. Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire. So man and woman will keep their trust, Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust. Yea, each with the other will lose and win, Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in. For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife, And the word of Love is the Word of Life. And they that go with the Word unsaid, Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead."

"You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love is to live by it. Love! A dark and starry transfiguration is mingled with that torment. There is ecstacy in the agony."

"Better get ready gonna see the light Love, love is the answer and that's all right So don't you give up now so easy to find Just look to your soul and open your mind"

"When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact’ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love! — then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink."

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

"Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot; Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit, Where long ago a giant battle was; And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass In every place where infant Orpheus slept. Feel we these things? — that moment have we stept Into a sort of oneness, and our state Is like a floating spirit's. But there are Richer entanglements, enthralments far More self-destroying, leading, by degrees, To the chief intensity: the crown of these Is made of love and friendship, and sits high Upon the forehead of humanity."

"Love in a hut, with water and a crust, Is — Love, forgive us! — cinders, ashes, dust."

"And there shall be for thee all soft delight That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in!"

"Love will come find you Just to remind you Of who you are [...] See that's the thing about love [...] Then life It will embrace you Totally amaze you So you don't give up"

"Baby lets go have that wreckless love, that crazy love That off the wall, wont stop till I get enough kind of love I need that love So baby lets go have that wreckless love, that crazy love That I dont really care we can have it anywhere kind of love That wreckless love"

"Ah Love! could you and I with him conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire Would we not shatter it to bits—and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire?"

"For, once he thrilled with high romance And tuned to love his eager voice. Like any cavalier of France He wooed the maiden of his choice. And now deep in his weary heart Are sacred flames that whitely burn. He has of Heaven's grace a part Who loves, who is beloved in turn."

"The song within your heart could never rise Until love bade it spread its wings and soar."

"Love is made out of ecstasy and wonder; Love is a poignant and accustomed pain. It is a burst of Heaven-shaking thunder; It is a linnet's fluting after rain."

"Tonight You're mine completely, You give your love so sweetly Tonight the light of love is in your eyes, But will you love me tomorrow?"

"I'd like to know that your love Is love I can be sure of, So tell me now and I won't ask again, Will you still love me tomorrow?"

"You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face And show the world all the love in your heart The people gonna treat you better, You're gonna find, yes you will, That you're beautiful as you feel."

"If there's any answer, maybe love can end the madness Maybe not, oh, but we can only try."

"The heart of a man to the heart of a maid— Light of my tents, be fleet— Morning awaits at the end of the world, And the world is all at our feet."

"The white moth to the closing vine, The bee to the open clover, And the Gypsy blood to the Gypsy blood Ever the wide world over."

"The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky The deer to the wholesome wold; And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid, As it was in the days of old."

"You may find many a brighter one Than your own rose, but there are none So true to thee, Love."

"Do any thing but love ; or if thou lovest And art a Woman, hide thy love from him Who thou dost worship ; never let him know How dear he is ; flit like a bird before him, — Lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower ; But be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird, When caught and caged, be left to pine neglected, And perish in forgetfulness."

"Love, thou hast hopes like summers, short and bright, Moments of ecstasy, and maddening dreams, Intense delicious throbs!"

"I loved him too as woman loves — Reckless of sorrow, sin, or scorn."

"Love is like the glass, That throws its own rich colour over all, And makes all beautiful."

"And Love is like the lightning in its might, Winging where least bethought its fiery flight, Melting the blade, despite the scabbard's guard."

"And this is Love! Oh! why should woman love; Wasting her dearest feelings, till health, hope, Happiness, are but things of which henceforth She'll only know the name?"

"What was our parting ?—one wild kiss, How wild I may not say, One long and breathless clasp, and then As life were past away."

"Love is a pearl of purest hue, But stormy waves are round it; And dearly may a woman rue, The hour that she found it."

"Ah! never is that cherished face Banished from its accustomed place— It shines upon my weariest night It leads me on in thickest fight: All that seems most opposed to be Is yet associate with thee— Together life and thee depart, Dream—idol—treasure of my heart."

"These blossoms, gathered in familiar paths, With dear companions now passed out of sight, Shall not be laid upon their graves. They live, Since love is deathless. Pleasure now nor pride Is theirs in mortal wise, but hallowing thoughts Will meet the offering, of so little worth, Wanting the benison death has made divine."

"Those that go searching for love only make manifest their own lovelessness, and the loveless never find love, only the loving find love, and they never have to seek for it."

"'Cause all of me Loves all of you Love your curves and all your edges All your perfect imperfections Give your all to me I'll give my all to you You're my end and my beginning"

"There's nothing you can do that can't be done Nothing you can sing that can't be sung Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game It's easy.All you need is love."

"We all been playing those mind games forever Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil. Doing the mind guerrilla, Some call it magic — the search for the grail.' Love is the answer and you know that for sure. Love is a flower, you got to let it — you got to let it grow."

"Say you'll love, love me forever Never stop, not for whatever Near and far and always and Everywhere and everything. I love you, always forever Near and far, close and together Everywhere, I will be with you Everything, I will do for you I love you, always forever Near and far, close and together Everywhere, I will be with you Everything, I will do for you."

"Without love I mean nothing to you Without love broken in two Without love give me some value some worth Without love no life left on earth."

"The power of love is a curious thing Make a one man weep, make another man sing Change a hawk to a little white dove More than a feeling that's the power of love Tougher than diamonds, rich like cream Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream Make a bad one good make a wrong one right Power of love that keeps you home at night"

"You don't need money, don't take fame Don't need no credit card to ride this train It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes But it might just save your life That's the power of love"

"Ah, how skillful grows the hand That obeyeth Love's command! It is the heart, and not the brain, That to the highest doth attain, And he who followeth Love's behest Far excelleth all the rest!"

"That was the first sound in the song of love! Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound. Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings Of that mysterious instrument, the soul, And play the prelude of our fate. We hear The voice prophetic, and are not alone."

"I love thee, as the good love heaven."

"Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak. It serves for food and raiment."

"How can I tell the signals and the signs By which one heart another heart divines? How can I tell the many thousand ways By which it keeps the secret it betrays?"

"What is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me, no more."

"Underneath a starry sky Time was still but hours must really have rushed by I didn't realize But love was in your eyes I really should have gone But love went on and on"

"Now there's no point in placing the blame And you should know I'd suffer the same If I lose you my heart will be broken Love is a bird... she needs to fly Let all the hurt inside of you die You're frozen when your heart's not open If I could melt your heart We'd never be apart Give yourself to me You hold the key"

"He drew a circle that shut me out — Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in."

"I am human and I need to be loved Just like everybody else does"

"Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone."

"Love means to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many. And whoever sees that way heals his heart, Without knowing it, from various ills — A bird and a tree say to him: Friend."

"Imparadis'd in one another's arms."

"Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring."

"Freely we serve, Because we freely love, as in our will To love or not; in this we stand or fall."

"So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life."

"It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit, Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit, That woman's love can win, or long inherit; But what it is, hard is to say, Harder to hit."

"Love works magic. It is the final purpose Of the world story, The Amen of the universe."

"We have come by curious ways To the Light that holds the days; We have sought in haunts of fear For that all-enfolding sphere: And lo! it was not far, but near.We have found, O foolish-fond, The shore that has no shore beyond.Deep in every heart it lies With its untranscended skies; For what heaven should bend above Hearts that own the heaven of love?"

"Your dreamers may dream it The shadow of a dream, Your sages may deem it A bubble on the stream; Yet our kingdom draweth nigher With each dawn and every day, Through the earthquake and the fire "Love will find out the way.""

"Heart of my heart, the world is young; Love lies hidden in every rose! Every song that the skylark sung Once, we thought, must come to a close: Now we know the spirit of song, Song that is merged in the chant of the whole, Hand in hand as we wander along, What should we doubt of the years that roll?"

"Heart of my heart, we are one with the wind, One with the clouds that are whirled o'er the lea, One in many, O broken and blind, One as the waves are at one with the sea! Ay! when life seems scattered apart, Darkens, ends as a tale that is told, One, we are one, O heart of my heart, One, still one, while the world grows old."

"Over the mountains, And over the waves, Over the fountains, And under the graves; Over the floods that are deepest, Which do Neptune obey; Over the rocks that are steepest, Love will find out the way."

"O amor é que é essencial. O sexo é só um acidente."

"Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good."

"Years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute."

"Thou wouldst be loved? — then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being everything which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love — a simple duty."

"Through years of my prime I walked with a heart crazy about love."

"May the river of love always flow from its own lap"

"May my pain remain drunk singing its own love songs"

"I wanted my heart to bloom and shelter a shadow of love"

"Tonight, may I get so drunk in love that I do not see any dreams!"

"How vast a memory has Love!"

"Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise."

"Curse on all laws but those which love has made."

"Fame, wealth, and honour! what are you to Love?"

"Not grace, or zeal, love only was my call, And if I lose thy love, I lose my all."

"Of all affliction taught a lover yet, 'Tis true the hardest science to forget."

"One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight; Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight."

"The holiness of the real Is always there, accessible In total immanence. The nodes Of transcendence coagulate In you, the experiencer, And in the other, the lover."

"Now I know surely and forever, However much I have blotted our Waking love, its memory is still there. And I know the web, the net, The blind and crippled bird. For then, for One brief instant it was not blind, nor Trapped, not crippled. For one heart beat the Heart was free and moved itself. O love, I who am lost and damned with words, Whose words are a business and an art, I have no words. These words, this poem, this Is all confusion and ignorance. But I know that coached by your sweet heart, My heart beat one free beat and sent Through all my flesh the blood of truth."

"I can't compete with a memory How can I fight with someone that I can't see? There's two of us but it feels like three I wish her ghost would just let us be Boy you're everything I ever wanted But I got to let you go 'cause this love is Haunted."

"Love is the ark appointed for the righteous, Which annuls the danger and provides a way of escape. Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition."

"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do."

"What is the body? That shadow of a shadow of your love, that somehow contains the entire universe."

"Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded. Someone sober will worry about events going badly. Let the lover be."

"Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being."

"Come, seek, for search is the foundation of fortune: every success depends upon focusing the heart."

"Love rests on no foundation. It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end."

"This is a gathering of Lovers. In this gathering there is no high, no low, no smart, no ignorant, no special assembly, no grand discourse, no proper schooling required. There is no master, no disciple. This gathering is more like a drunken party, full of tricksters, fools, mad men and mad women. This is a gathering of Lovers."

"Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me. Be silent."

"O tender yearning, sweet hoping! The golden time of first love! The eye sees the open heaven, The heart is intoxicated with bliss; O that the beautiful time of young love Could remain green forever."

"Wouldst thou know thyself, observe the actions of others. Wouldst thou other men know, look thou within thine own heart."

"How could I think the brief years were enough To prove the reality of endless love?"

"Delmore Schwartz, in "I am a Book I neither Wrote nor Read" in Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge (1959)"

"How long will I love you? As long as stars are above you And longer if I can"

"How long will I want you? As long as you want me to And longer by far"

"On a day — alack the day! — Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air"

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind."

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have."

"Expressing not to you; but with you, I've bound my love unseen from anywhere."

"May I never tire of expressing myself may I find contentment in listening to you may there be no constraints of time and may we be bound together as a single knot you, time, and I."

"May I grasp you and drift into a deep slumber may there be no haste to wake up may there be no fear of missing a moment."

"May I get melted on your embrace, and meld into your wholeness."

"Yet all love is sweet Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever. * * * * * They who inspire it most are fortunate, As I am now: but those who feel it most Are happier still after long sufferings As I shall soon become."

"Familiar acts are beautiful through love."

"Soul meets soul on lovers' lips."

"This is the day, which down the void abysm At the Earth-born’s spell yawns for Heaven’s despotism And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep: Love, from its awful throne of patient power In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep, And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs And folds over the world its healing wings."

"True Love in this differs from gold and clay, That to divide is not to take away. Love is like understanding, that grows bright, Gazing on many truths; 'tis like thy light, Imagination! which from earth and sky, And from the depths of human phantasy, As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills The Universe with glorious beams, and kills Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow Of its reverberated lightning."

"Love's very pain is sweet, But its reward is in the world divine Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave."

"And bid them love each other and be blest: And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves, And come and be my guest, — for I am Love's."

"I love Love — though he has wings, And like light can flee, But above all other things, Spirit, I love thee — Thou art love and life! Oh come, Make once more my heart thy home."

"The problem is all inside your head, she said to me The answer is easy if you take it logically I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free There must be fifty ways to leave your lover."

"She said, why don't we both just sleep on it tonight And I believe, in the morning you'll begin to see the light And then she kissed me and I realized she probably was right There must be fifty ways to leave your lover, fifty ways to leave your lover"

"First thing I remember when you came into my life I said I wanna get that girl, no matter what I do Well I guess I've been in love before and once or twice have been on the floor But I've never loved no-one the way that I love you."

"And she said 'Losing love is like a window in your heart, Everybody sees you're blown apart, Everybody feels the wind blow.'"

"Far above the golden clouds, the darkness vibrates. The earth is blue. And everything about it is a love song. Everything about it."

"Maybe the heart is part of the mist. And that's all that there is or could ever exist. Maybe and maybe and maybe some more. Maybe's the exit that I'm looking for."

"Take me. I'm an ordinary player in the key of C. And my will was broken by my pride and my vanity. Who's gonna love you when you're looks are gone? God will. Like he waters the flowers on your window sill."

"When I saw you, I was afraid of meeting you. When I met you, I was afraid of kissing you. When I kissed you, I was afraid to love you. Now that I love you, I'm afraid of losing you."

"If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather, Blown fields or flowerful closes, Green pasture or gray grief; If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf."

"Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran, Pleasure with pain for leaven, Summer with flowers that fell, Remembrance fallen from heaven, And Madness risen from hell, Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death."

"Time found our tired love sleeping, And kissed away his breath; But what should we do weeping, Though light love sleep to death? We have drained his lips at leisure, Till there's not left to drain A single sob of pleasure, A single pulse of pain."

"Before our lives divide for ever, While time is with us and hands are free, (Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever Hand from hand, as we stand by the sea) I will say no word that a man might say Whose whole life's love goes down in a day; For this could never have been; and never, Though the gods and the years relent, shall be. Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour, To think of things that are well outworn? Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower, The dream foregone and the deed forborne? Though joy be done with and grief be vain, Time shall not sever us wholly in twain; Earth is not spoilt for a single shower; But the rain has ruined the ungrown corn."

"In the change of years, in the coil of things, In the clamour and rumour of life to be, We, drinking love at the furthest springs, Covered with love as a covering tree, We had grown as gods, as the gods above, Filled from the heart to the lips with love, Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings, O love, my love, had you loved but me!"

"The loves and hours of the life of a man, They are swift and sad, being born of the sea. Hours that rejoice and regret for a span, Born with a man's breath, mortal as he; Loves that are lost ere they come to birth, Weeds of the wave, without fruit upon earth. I lose what I long for, save what I can, My love, my love, and no love for me!"

"I had grown pure as the dawn and the dew, You had grown strong as the sun or the sea. But none shall triumph a whole life through: For death is one, and the fates are three. At the door of life, by the gate of breath, There are worse things waiting for men than death; Death could not sever my soul and you, As these have severed your soul from me. You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you, Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer. But will it not one day in heaven repent you? Will they solace you wholly, the days that were? Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss, Meet mine, and see where the great love is, And tremble and turn and be changed? Content you; The gate is strait; I shall not be there."

"The pulse of war and passion of wonder, The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine, The stars that sing and the loves that thunder, The music burning at heart like wine, An armed archangel whose hands raise up All senses mixed in the spirit's cup Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder — These things are over, and no more mine.These were a part of the playing I heard Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife; Love that sings and hath wings as a bird, Balm of the wound and heft of the knife. Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleep Than overwatching of eyes that weep, Now time has done with his one sweet word, The wine and leaven of lovely life."

"Our way is where God knows And Love knows where: We are in Love’s hand to-day."

"'Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all."

"For love reflects the thing beloved."

"Love's too precious to be lost, A little grain shall not be spilt."

"There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;" And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" The larkspur listens, "I hear; I hear;" And the lily whispers, "I wait.""

"She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthly bed; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red."

"Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls: Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to love."

"You, methinks you think you love me well; For me, I love you somewhat; rest: and Love Should have some rest and pleasure in himself, Not ever be too curious for a boon, Too prurient for a proof against the grain Of him ye say ye love: but Fame with men, Being but ampler means to serve mankind, Should have small rest or pleasure in herself, But work as vassal to the larger love, That dwarfs the petty love of one to one."

"Sweet is true love though given in vain, in vain; And sweet is death who puts an end to pain: I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be: Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me. O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. … I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me; Call and I follow, I follow! let me die."

"Free love, so bound, were freëst," said the King. "Let love be free; free love is for the best: And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, What should be best, if not so pure a love Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee She failed to bind, though being, as I think, Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know."

"Lady, for indeed I loved you and I deemed you beautiful, I cannot brook to see your beauty marred Through evil spite: and if ye love me not, I cannot bear to dream you so forsworn: I had liefer ye were worthy of my love, Than to be loved again of you — farewell; And though ye kill my hope, not yet my love, Vex not yourself: ye will not see me more."

"We love but while we may; And therefore is my love so large for thee, Seeing it is not bounded save by love."

"I will love thee to the death, And out beyond into the dream to come."

"My doom is, I love thee still. Let no man dream but that I love thee still."

"Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths."

"Where love could walk with banish'd Hope no more."

"Love's arms were wreathed about the neck of Hope, And Hope kiss'd Love, and Love drew in her breath In that close kiss and drank her whisper'd tales. They said that Love would die when Hope was gone. And Love mourn'd long, and sorrow'd after Hope; At last she sought out Memory, and they trod The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope, And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears."

"Love will conquer at the last."

"Who are wise in love Love most, say least"

"In a wink the false love turns to hate."

"Here her hand Grasped, made her vail her eyes: she looked and saw The novice, weeping, suppliant, and said to her, "Yea, little maid, for am I not forgiven?" Then glancing up beheld the holy nuns All round her, weeping; and her heart was loosed Within her, and she wept with these and said,"Ye know me then, that wicked one, who broke The vast design and purpose of the King. O shut me round with narrowing nunnery-walls, Meek maidens, from the voices crying 'shame.'I must not scorn myself: he loves me still. Let no one dream but that he loves me still.""

"Love is and was my Lord and King, And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring."

"I feel it in my fingers I feel it in my toes Love is all around me And so the feeling grows It is written on the wind Thats everywhere I go So if you really love me Come on and let it show"

"There's no beginning There be no end Cause on my love You can depend"

"When people keep repeating That you'll never fall in love When everybody keeps retreating But you can't seem to get enough Let my love open the door Let my love open the door Let my love open the door To your heart."

"For Truth makes holy Love's illusive dreams, And their best promise constantly redeems."

"I don't wanna lose you I don't even wanna say goodbye I just wanna hold on To this true love, true love I don't wanna lose you And I always wanna feel this way Cause everytime I'm with you I feel true love, true love"

"Oh what's love got to do, got to do with it What's love but a second hand emotion What's love got to do, got to do with it Who needs a heart When a heart can be broken"

"I just sware That I'll always be there I'd give anything and everything And I will always care Through weekness and strength Happiness and sorrow For better or for worse I will love you With every beat of my heart."

"When I first saw you, I saw love And the first time you touched me, I felt love And after all this time, You're still the one I love. [...] (You're still the one) You're still the one I run to The one that I belong to You're still the one I want for life (You're still the one) You're still the one that I love The only one I dream of You're still the one I kiss good night."

"In your eyes (I can still see the look of the one) I can still see the look Of the one who really loves me (II can still feel the way that you want) The one who wouldn't put anything Else in the world above me (I can still see your love for me) I can still see your love for me in your eyes (I still see the love)"

"You say love is a temple, love a higher law Love is a temple, love the higher law You ask me to enter but then you make me crawl And I can't be holdin' on to what you got When all you got is hurt"

"Love lifts us up where we belong Where the eagles cry On a mountain highLove lifts us up where we belong Far from the world we know Up where the clear winds blow"

"There are many kinds of love, as many kinds of light, And every kind of love makes a glory in the night. There is love that stirs the heart, and love that gives it rest, But the love that leads life upward is the noblest and the best."

"Omnia vincit Amor; et nos cedamus Amori."

"Quis fallere possit amantem?"

"Improbe Amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis!"

"Amor omnibus idem."

"Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître; Il l'est—le fut—ou le doit être."

": Whoe'er thou art, thy master see; He was—or is—or is to be."

"Love,—the shining goal Of every human soul."

"Could we forbear dispute, and practise love, We should agree as angels do above."

"Consent in virtue knit your hearts so fast, That still the knot, in spite of death, does last; For as your tears, and sorrow-wounded soul, Prove well that on your part this bond is whole, So all we know of what they do above, Is that they happy are, and that they love. Let dark oblivion, and the hollow grave, Content themselves our frailer thoughts to have; Well-chosen love is never taught to die, But with our nobler part invades the sky."

"Love is to die, love is to not die, Love is to dance, love is to dance. Love is to die, Why don't you not die? Why don't you dance? Why don't you dance and dance?"

"The combination of these two facts — the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it — constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality. Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect. This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings. Whatever formulation of belief or disbelief a man may choose to make, if his heart inclines him to feel this respect, then he in fact also recognizes a reality other than this world's reality. Whoever in fact does not feel this respect is alien to that other reality also."

"Life is ever lord of Death And Love can never lose its own."

"Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet, Those who love each other shall become invincible..."

"Blow again trumpeter! and for thy theme, Take now the enclosing theme of all, the solvent and the setting, Love, that is pulse of all, the sustenance and the pang, The heart of man and woman all for love, No other theme but love — knitting, enclosing, all-diffusing love."

"Love, that is all the earth to lovers — love, that mocks time and space, Love, that is day and night — love, that is sun and moon and stars, Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume, No other words but words of love, no other thought but love."

"Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone, But love is not over..."

"There is no language that love does not speak."

"I find a rapture linked with each despair, Well worth the price of anguish. I detect More good than evil in humanity. Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes, And men grow better as the world grows old."

"Between the finite and the infinite The missing link of Love has left a void. Supply the link, and earth with Heaven will join In one continued chain of endless life."

"Give of thy love, nor wait to know the worth Of what thou lovest; and ask no returning. And wheresoe'er thy pathway leads on earth, There thou shalt find the lamp of love-light burning."

"All love that has not friendship for its base, Is like a mansion built upon the sand."

"Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold."

"Just let your love flow like a mountain stream And let your love grow with the smallest of dreams And let your love show and you'll know what I mean It's the season Let your love fly like a bird on a wing And let your love bind you to all livin' things And let your love shine and you'll know what I mean That's the reason."

"Living might mean taking chances, but they're worth taking. Loving might be a mistake, but it's worth making."

"True beauty dwells in deep retreats, Whose veil is unremoved Till heart with heart in concord beats, And the lover is beloved."

"If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms Of young imagination have kept pure Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride, Howe'er disguised in its own majesty, Is littleness; that he who feels contempt For any living thing, hath faculties Which he has never used; that thought with him Is in its infancy. The man whose eye Is ever on himself doth look on one, The least of Nature's works, one who might move The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, thou ! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love; True dignity abides with him alone Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, Can still suspect, and still revere himself, In lowliness of heart."

"A pity beyond all telling Is hid in the heart of love."

"Love is in the air Everywhere I look around Love is in the air Every sight and every sound And I don't know if I'm being foolish Don't know if I'm being wise But it's something that I must believe in And it's there when I look in your eyes."

"Love is in the air In the whisper of the trees Love is in the air In the thunder of the sea And I don't know if I'm just dreaming Don't know if I feel sane But it's something that I must believe in And it's there when you call out my name."

"Che amar chi t'odia, ell'è impossibil cosa."

": For 'tis impossible Hate to return with love."

"Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours For one lone soul another lonely soul, Each choosing each through all the weary hours, And meeting strangely at one sudden goal, Then blend they, like green leaves with golden flowers, Into one beautiful and perfect whole; And life's long night is ended, and the way Lies open onward to eternal day."

"Ma vie a son secret, mon âme a son mystére: Un amour éternel en un moment concu. La mal est sans remède, aussi j'ai dû le taire, Et elle qui l'a fait n'en a jamais rien su."

": One sweet, sad secret holds my heart in thrall; A mighty love within my breast has grown, Unseen, unspoken, and of no one known; And of my sweet, who gave it, least of all."

"How many times do I love, again? Tell me how many beads there are In a silver chain Of evening rain Unravelled from the trembling main And threading the eye of a yellow star:— So many times do I love again."

"Mein Herz ich will dich fragen, Was ist denn Liebe, sag? "Zwei Seelen und ein Gedanke, Zwei Herzen und ein Schlag.""

"To Chloe's breast young Cupid slily stole, But he crept in at Myra's pocket-hole."

"Love in a shower safe shelter took, In a rosy bower beside a brook, And winked and nodded with conscious pride To his votaries drenched on the other side. Come hither, sweet maids, there's a bridge below, The toll-keeper, Hymen, will let you through. Come over the stream to me."

"Much ado there was, God wot; He woold love, and she woold not, She sayd, "Never man was trewe;" He sayes, "None was false to you.""

"In your arms was still delight, Quiet as a street at night; And thoughts of you, I do remember, Were green leaves in a darkened chamber, Were dark clouds in a moonless sky."

"For none can express thee, though all should approve thee. I love thee so, Dear, that I only can love thee."

"Behold me! I am worthy Of thy loving, for I love thee!"

"Who can fear Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll— Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year? Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear, To love me also in silence, with thy soul."

"Unless you can feel when the song is done No other is sweet in its rhythm; Unless you can feel when left by one That all men else go with him."

"I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds All the world's loves in its unworldliness."

"Never the time and the place And the loved one all together."

"God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her."

"Love has no thought of self! Love buys not with the ruthless usurer's gold The loathsome prostitution of a hand Without a heart! Love sacrifices all things To bless the thing it loves!"

"Love thou, and if thy love be deep as mine, Thou wilt not laugh at poets."

"No matter what you do, if your heart is ever true, And his heart was true to Poll."

"To see her is to love her, And love but her forever; For nature made her what she is, And never made anither!"

"The wisest man the warl' e'er saw, He dearly loved the lasses, O."

"The golden hours on angel wings Flew o'er me and my dearie, For dear to me as light and life Was my sweet Highland Mary."

"Oh my luve's like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June; Oh my luve's like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune."

"What is life, when wanting love? Night without a morning; Love's the cloudless summer sun, Nature gay adorning."

"When things were as fine as could possibly be I thought 'twas the spring; but alas it was she."

"I'll bid the hyacinth to blow, I'll teach my grotto green to be; And sing my true love, all below The holly bower and myrtle tree."

"My love lies bleeding."

"He that loves a rosy cheek, Or a coral lip admires, Or from star-like eyes doth seek Fuel to maintain his fires, As Old Time makes these decay, So his flames must waste away."

"Then fly betimes, for only they Conquer love, that run away."

"Of all the girls that are so smart There's none like pretty Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And lives in our alley."

"Let Time and Chance combine, combine! Let Time and Chance combine! The fairest love from heaven above, That love of yours was mine, My Dear! That love of yours was mine."

"Mulier cupido quod dicit amanti, In vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua."

": What woman says to fond lover should be written on air or the swift water."

"Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem."

": It is difficult at once to relinquish a long-cherished love."

"Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio: sed fieri sentio, et excrucior."

": I hate and I love. Why do I do so you perhaps ask. I cannot say; but I feel it to be so, and I am tormented accordingly."

"Vivamus, mea Lesbia atque amemus."

": My Lesbia, let us live and love."

"It's love, it's love that makes the world go round."

"I tell thee Love is Nature's second sun, Causing a spring of virtues where he shines."

"Alas! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth, And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny, and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain."

"I know not when the day shall be, I know not when our eyes may meet; What welcome you may give to me, Or will your words be sad or sweet, It may not be 'till years have passed, 'Till eyes are dim and tresses gray; The world is wide, but, love, at last, Our hands, our hearts, must meet some day."

"A mighty pain to love it is, And 'tis a pain that pain to miss; But, of all pains, the greatest pain Is to love, but love in vain."

"Heaven's great artillery."

"Love's great artillery."

"Mighty Love's artillery."

"And I, what is my crime I cannot tell, Vnless it be a crime to haue lou'd too well."

"He who, being bold For life to come, is false to the past sweet Of mortal life, hath killed the world above. For why to live again if not to meet? And why to meet if not to meet in love? And why in love if not in that dear love of old?"

"Give, you gods, Give to your boy, your Cæsar, The rattle of a globe to play withal, This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off; I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra."

"How happy the lover, How easy his chain, How pleasing his pain, How sweet to discover He sighs not in vain."

"Fool, not to know that love endures no tie, And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury."

"I'm sitting on the stile. Mary, Where we sat side by side."

"Oh, tell me whence Love cometh! Love comes uncall'd, unsent. Oh, tell me where Love goeth! That was not Love that went."

"The solid, solid universe Is pervious to Love; With bandaged eyes he never errs, Around, below, above. His blinding light He flingeth white On God's and Satan's brood, And reconciles By mystic wiles The evil and the good."

"A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs; The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays."

"All mankind love a lover."

"Her very frowns are fairer far Than smiles of other maidens are."

"Poor love is lost in men's capacious minds, In ours, it fills up all the room it finds."

"Love is the tyrant of the heart; it darkens Reason, confounds discretion; deaf to Counsel It runs a headlong course to desperate madness."

"Love, then, hath every bliss in store; 'Tis friendship, and 'tis something more. Each other every wish they give; Not to know love is not to live."

"I love her doubling and anguish; I love the love she withholds, I love my love that loveth her, And anew her being moulds."

"Love, Love, my Love. The best things are the truest! When the earth lies shadowy dark below Oh, then the heavens are bluest!"

"Not from the whole wide world I chose thee, Sweetheart, light of the land and the sea! The wide, wide world could not inclose thee, For thou art the whole wide world to me."

"I seek for one as fair and gay, But find none to remind me, How blest the hours pass'd away With the girl I left behind me."

"In einem Augenblick gewährt die Liebe Was Mühe kaum in langer Zeit erreicht."

": Love grants in a moment What toil can hardly achieve in an age."

"Man liebt an dem Mädchen was es ist, Und an dem Jüngling was er ankündigt."

": Girls we love for what they are; Young men for what they promise to be."

"Thus let me hold thee to my heart, And every care resign: And we shall never, never part, My life—my all that's mine!"

"Whoe'er thou art, thy Lord and master see, Thou wast my Slave, thou art, or thou shalt be."

"Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart."

"O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move The bloom of young Desire and purple light of love."

"Love is a lock that linketh noble minds, Faith is the key that shuts the spring of love."

"Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves was my heart of gold, And who but Lady Greensleeves?"

"The chemist of love Will this perishing mould, Were it made out of mire, Transmute into gold."

"Du bist wie eine Blume, so hold, so schön und rein; Ich shau' dich an und Wehmut schleicht mir ins Herz hinein."

": Oh fair, oh sweet and holy as dew at morning tide, I gaze on thee, and yearnings, sad in my bosom hide."

"Es ist eine alte Geschichte, Doch bleibt sie immer neu."

": It is an ancient story Yet is it ever new."

"And once again we plighted our troth, And titter'd, caress'd, kiss'd so dearly."

"Alas! for love, if thou art all, And nought beyond, O earth."

"Open your heart and take us in, Love—love and me."

"You say to me-wards your affection's strong; Pray love me little, so you love me long."

"There is a lady sweet and kind, Was never face so pleased my mind; I did but see her passing by, And yet I love her till I die."

"Bid me to live, and I will live Thy Protestant to be: Or bid me love, and I will give A loving heart to thee, A heart as soft, a heart as kind, A heart as sound and free As in the whole world thou canst find, That heart I'll give to thee."

"Let never man be bold enough to say, Thus, and no farther shall my passion stray: The first crime, past, compels us into more, And guilt grows fate, that was but choice, before."

"O, love, love, love! Love is like a dizziness; It winna let a poor body Gang about his biziness!"

"Soft is the breath of a maiden's Yes: Not the light gossamer stirs with less; But never a cable that holds so fast Through all the battles of wave and blast."

"Who love too much, hate in the like extreme."

"For love deceives the best of woman kind."

"What's our baggage? Only vows, Happiness, and all our care, And the flower that sweetly shows Nestling lightly in your hair."

"If you become a Nun, dear, The bishop Love will be; The Cupids every one, dear! Will chant—'We trust in thee!'"

"From henceforth thou shalt learn that there is love To long for, pureness to desire, a mount Of consecration it were good to scale."

"But great loves, to the last, have pulses red; All great loves that have ever died dropped dead."

"Love has a tide!"

"When love is at its best, one loves So much that he cannot forget."

"Love's like the flies, and, drawing-room or garret, goes all over a house."

"When late I attempted your pity to move, Why seemed you so deaf to my prayers? Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love But—why did you kick me downstairs?"

"What's this dull town to me? Robin's not near— He whom I wished to see, Wished for to hear; Where's all the joy and mirth Made life a heaven on earth? O! they're all fled with thee, Robin Adair."

"The hawk unto the open sky, The red deer to the wold; The Romany lass for the Romany lad, As in the days of old."

"Sing, for faith and hope are high— None so true as you and I— Sing the Lovers' Litany: "Love like ours can never die!""

"By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea, There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say: "Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!""

"If Love were jester at the court of Death, And Death the king of all, still would I pray, "For me the motley and the bauble, yea, Though all be vanity, as the Preacher saith, The mirth of love be mine for one brief breath!""

"Amour! Amour! quand tu nous tiens On peut bien dire, Adieu, prudence."

": O tyrant love, when held by you, We may to prudence bid adieu."

"Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing Ever made by the Hand above— A woman's heart, and a woman's life, And a woman's wonderful love?"

"I love a lassie, a bonnie, bonnie lassie, She's as pure as the lily in the dell. She's as sweet as the heather, The bonnie, bloomin' heather, Mary, ma Scotch Blue-bell."

"Et c'est dans la première flamme Qu'est tout le nectar du baiser."

": And in that first flame Is all the nectar of the kiss."

"Love leads to present rapture,—then to pain; But all through Love in time is healed again."

"A warrior so bold, and a virgin so bright, Conversed as they sat on the green. They gazed on each other with tender delight, Alonzo the Brave was the name of the knight— The maiden's the Fair Imogene."

"Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse. To and fro in his breast his thoughts were heaving and dashing, As in a foundering ship."

"Like Dian's kiss, unask'd, unsought, Love gives itself, but is not bought."

"Does not all the blood within me Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee, As the springs to meet the sunshine."

"I do not love thee less for what is done, And cannot be undone. Thy very weakness Hath brought thee nearer to me, and henceforth My love will have a sense of pity in it, Making it less a worship than before."

"So they grew, and they grew, to the church steeple tops And they couldn't grow up any higher; So they twin'd themselves into a true lover's knot, For all lovers true to admire."

"Under floods that are deepest, Which Neptune obey, Over rocks that are steepest, Love will find out the way."

"Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly. . . . . . . Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore:— I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more."

"True love is but a humble, low born thing, And hath its food served up in earthenware; It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, Through the every-dayness of this workday world."

"Not as all other women are Is she that to my soul is dear; Her glorious fancies come from far, Beneath the silver evening star, And yet her heart is ever near."

"Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib, und Gesang, Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang."

"None without hope e'er lov'd the brightest fair: But Love can hope where Reason would despair."

"But thou, through good and evil, praise and blame, Wilt not thou love me for myself alone? Yes, thou wilt love me with exceeding love, And I will tenfold all that love repay; Still smiling, though the tender may reprove, Still faithful, though the trusted may betray."

"This lass so neat, with smile so sweet, Has won my right good will, I'd crowns resign to call her mine, Sweet lass of Richmond Hill."

"When Madelon comes out to serve us drinks, We always know she's coming by her song. And every man he tells his little tale, And Madelon, she listens all day long. Our Madelon is never too severe— A kiss or two is nothing much to her— She laughs us up to love and life and God— Madelon, Madelon, Madelon."

"Come live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That valleys, groves, or hills, or fields, Or woods and steepy mountains, yield."

"I do not love thee, Dr. Fell. But why I cannot tell; But this I know full well, I do not love thee, Dr. Fell."

"Je ne vous aime pas, Hylas; Je n'en saurois dire la cause; Je sais seulement une chose. C'est que je ne vous aime pas."

"I love thee not, Nell But why I can't tell."

"Love is a flame to burn out human wills, Love is a flame to set the will on fire, Love is a flame to cheat men into mire."

"Great men, Till they have gained their ends, are giants in Their promises, but, those obtained, weak pigmies In their performance. And it is a maxim Allowed among them, so they may deceive, They may swear anything; for the queen of love, As they hold constantly, does never punish, But smile, at lovers' perjuries."

"'Tis well to be merry and wise, 'Tis well to be honest and true; 'Tis well to be off with the old love, Before you are on with the new."

"It is good to be merry and wise, It is good to be honest and true, It is best to be off with the old love, Before you are on with the new."

"I loved you ere I knew you; know you now, And having known you, love you better still."

"Love is all in fire, and yet is ever freezing; Love is much in winning, yet is more in leesing: Love is ever sick, and yet is never dying; Love is ever true, and yet is ever lying; Love does doat in liking, and is mad in loathing; Love indeed is anything, yet indeed is nothing."

"I never heard Of any true affection but 'twas nipped."

"He who for love hath undergone The worst that can befall, Is happier thousandfold than one Who never loved at all."

"Yes, loving is a painful thrill, And not to love more painful still; But oh, it is the worst of pain, To love and not be lov'd again."

"No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close, As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets, The same look which she turn'd when he rose."

"I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart, I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art."

"A boat at midnight sent alone To drift upon the moonless sea, A lute, whose leading chord is gone, A wounded bird, that hath but one Imperfect wing to soar upon, Are like what I am, without thee."

"But there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream."

"Tell me, what's Love;" said Youth, one day, To drooping Age, who crost his way.— "It is a sunny hour of play; For which repentance dear doth pay; Repentance! Repentance! And this is Love, as wise men say."

"I've wandered east, I've wandered west, I've bourne a weary lot; But in my wanderings far or near Ye never were forgot. The fount that first burst frae this heart Still travels on its way And channels deeper as it rins The luve o' life's young day."

"Duty's a slave that keeps the keys, But Love, the master goes in and out Of his goodly chambers with song and shout, Just as he please—just as he please."

"Res est soliciti plena timoris amor."

": Love is a thing full of anxious fears."

"Quicquid Amor jussit non est contemnere tutum. Regnat, et in dominos jus habet ille deos."

": It is not safe to despise what Love commands. He reigns supreme, and rules the mighty gods."

"Hei mihi! quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis."

": Ah me! love can not be cured by herbs."

"Non bene conveniunt, nec in una sede morantur, Majestas et amor."

": Majesty and love do not well agree, nor do they live together."

"Credula res amor est."

": Love is a credulous thing."

"Qui finem quæris amoris, (Cedit amor rebus) res age; tutus eris."

": If thou wishest to put an end to love, attend to business (love yields to employment); then thou wilt be safe."

"Let those love now who never lov'd before, Let those who always loved now love the more."

"The moods of love are like the wind, And none knows whence or why they rise."

"What thing is love?—for (well I wot) love is a thing. It is a prick, it is a sting. It is a pretty, pretty thing; It is a fire, it is a coal, Whose flame creeps in at every hole!"

"Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep, Who lost my heart while I preserv'd my sheep."