"I also liked the Romantic poets. Wordsworth, Keats, Burns and Blake were some of my favourites. There was something about their rebellious spirit against the evils of industrialization that moved me. Of course now, some of their pessimism, mysticism and limited critical realist visions make me quite uncomfortable."

"Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?"

"Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

"The other people that I was simply made for were the Romantic poets. Shelley, in particular, and Keats."

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone. Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!"

"Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toil me back from thee to my sole self!"

"Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music: — Do I wake or sleep?"

"What harm he has done in English Poetry. As Browning is a man with a moderate gift passionately desiring movement and fulness, and obtaining but a confused multitudinousness, so Keats with a very high gift, is yet also consumed by this desire; and cannot produce the truly living and moving, as his conscience keeps telling him. They will not be patient neither understand that they must begin with an Idea of the world in order not be prevailed over by the world's multitudinousness: or if they cannot get that, at least with isolated ideas: and all other things shall (perhaps) be added unto them."

"Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape? Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?"

"I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet."

"And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves."

"Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — To thy high requiem become a sod."

"Already with thee! tender is the night."

"[about his letters] I think I enjoy them more than his poetry. He had a wonderful brain and a very strong character."

"Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs."

"Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn."

"think: poems fixed this landscape: Blake, Donne, Keats"

"And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon."

"He play'd an ancient ditty long since mute, In Provence call'd "La belle dame sans mercy.""

"She hurried at his words, beset with fears, For there were sleeping dragons all around, At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears — Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found. — In all the house was heard no human sound. A chain-droop'd lamp was flickering by each door; The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound, Flutter'd in the besieging wind's uproar; And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor."

"And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep, In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender'd."

"Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest."

"Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees."

"And they are gone: ay, ages long ago These lovers fled away into the storm."

"As though a rose should shut and be a bud again."

"Asleep in lap of legends old."

"Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose, Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart Made purple riot."

"A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing."

"She sighed for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year."

"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness, — That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease."

"The silver snarling trumpets 'gan to chide."

"The music, yearning like a God in pain."

"As though a tongueless nightingale should swell Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell."

"No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolfs-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd By nightshade."

"But when the melancholy fit shall fall Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud; Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose."

"She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips. Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung."

"Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies."

"Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?"

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the ground, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells."

"St. Agnes' Eve — Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass, And silent was the flock in woolly fold."

"Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers."

"Every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer."

"Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses: we read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author."

"I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me."

"Scenery is fine — but human nature is finer."

"With Wordsworth, mortality is often just under the surface, as it was with Keats, another child of his time, who believed, because of the Enlightenment, that we are material beings in a material universe and that we must just accept that fate. We are mortal, but with no divine shoulder to lean on, and we will never understand the deepest truths, which, contrary to all the protestations of the Enlightenment, neither reason nor science can reach. Keats had a tragic sense of life. He is recognizably a Romantic; there is no Enlightenment Utopia waiting for him."

"Music's golden tongue Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor."

"O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth. Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth."

"Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new?"

"They will explain themselves — as all poems should do without any comment."