"Around her, lovers, newly met 'Mid deathless love's acclaims, Spoke evermore among themselves Their heart-remember'd names; And the souls mounting up to God Went by her like thin flames."

"From the fix'd place of Heaven she saw Time like a pulse shake fierce Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove Within the gulf to pierce Its path; and now she spoke as when The stars sang in their spheres."

"The sun was gone now; the curl'd moon Was like a little feather Fluttering far down the gulf; and now She spoke through the still weather. Her voice was like the voice the stars Had when they sang together."

"The blessed damozel lean'd out From the gold bar of Heaven; Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters still'd at even; She had three lilies in her hand, And the stars in her hair were seven."

"Was it a friend or foe that spread these lies? Nay, who but infants question in such wise, 'T was one of my most intimate enemies."

"If the light is It is because God said 'Let there be light.'"

"We two will stand beside that shrine, Occult, withheld, untrod, Whose lamps are stirr'd continually With prayer sent up to God; And see our old prayers, granted, melt Each like a little cloud."

"Thou fill'st from the wingèd chalice of the soul Thy lamp, O Memory, fire-wingèd to its goal."

"I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door, The sweet, keen smell, The sighing sound, the lights around the shore."

"If God in his wisdom have brought close The day when I must die, That day by water or fire or air My feet shall fall in the destined snare Wherever my road may lie."

"Still we say as we go,— "Strange to think by the way Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day.""

"Tell me now in what hidden way is Lady Flora the lovely Roman? Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais, Neither of them the fairer woman? Where is Echo, beheld of no man, Only heard on river and mere— She whose beauty was more than human?— But where are the snows of yester-year?"

"We two will lie i' the shadow of That living mystic tree Within whose secret growth the Dove Is sometimes felt to be, While every leaf that His plumes touch Saith His Name audibly."

"I am not as these are, the poet saith In youth's pride, and the painter, among men At bay, where never pencil comes nor pem"

"From perfect grief there need not be Wisdom or even memory; One thing then learned remains to me — The woodspurge has a cup of three."

"Gather a shell from the strewn beach And listen at its lips: they sigh The same desire and mystery, The echo of the whole sea's speech."

"The well of true wit is truth itself."

"Ireland gives England her soldiers, her generals too."

"How divine is utterance!" she said. "As we to the brutes, poets are to us."

"What a woman thinks of women is the test of her nature."

"Cynicism is intellectual dandyism."

"In...the book of Egoism, it is written, possession without obligation to the object possessed approaches felicity."

"There is nothing the body suffers that the soul may not profit by."

"A Sonnet is a moment's monument,— Memorial from the Soul's eternity To one dead deathless hour."

"A witty woman is a treasure; a witty beauty is a power."

"More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar Utterly this fair garden we might win."

"Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life! - In tragic hints here see what evermore Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force, Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse, To throw that faint thin fine upon the shore!"

"Comedy is a game played to throw reflections upon social life, and it deals with human nature in the drawing-room of civilized men and women, where we have no dust of the struggling outer world, no mire, no violent crashes, to make the correctness of the representation convincing."

"In tragic life, God wot, No villain need be! Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within."

"She [Comedy] it is who proposes the correcting of pretentiousness, of inflation, of dulness, and of the vestiges of rawness and grossness to be found among us. She is the ultimate civilizer, the polisher, a sweet cook."

"How many a thing which we cast to the ground, When others pick it up, becomes a gem!"

"... Other writers may draw more recognisable scenes; Meredith contrives to place us in company which, in spite of seeming at times like a mad dream, never allows us to question that something living and genuine is going forward."

"God's rarest blessing is, after all, a good woman!"

"Speech is the small change of Silence."

"Not till the fire is dying in the grate, Look we for any kinship with the stars. Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold, And the great price we pay for it full worth: We have it only when we are half earth."

"Kissing don't last; cookery do!"

"Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered."

"Perfect simplicity is unconsciously audacious."

"And if I drink oblivion of a day, So shorten I the stature of my soul."

"The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the waters shout to him golden shouts."

"Behold the life at ease; it drifts, The sharpened life commands its course."

"All wisdom's armoury this man could wield"

"Cannon his name, Cannon his voice, he came."

"Full lasting is the song, though he, The singer, passes"

"The actors are, it seems, the usual three: Husband and wife and lover."

"Civil limitation daunts His utterance never; the nymphs blush, not he."

"With patient inattention hear him prate."

"I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man."

"On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose. Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend."