"O thou sophist, Man! Reason by reason proved unreasonable Continues reasoning still! Confronted close, What is this reason? Like the peacock's tail, Just useful for a flourish, nothing more; And when 'tis down, the world goes on the same."

"In vain would science scan and trace Firmly her aspect. All the while, There gleams upon her far-off face A vague unfathomable smile."

"If Nature built by rule and square, Than man what wiser would she be? What wins us is her careless care, And sweet unpunctuality."

"Doth Nature draw me, 'tis because, Unto my seeming, there doth lurk A lawlessness about her laws, More mood than purpose in her work."

"Why from the plain truth should I shrink? In woods men feel; in towns they think. Yet, which is best? Thought, stumbling, plods Past fallen temples, vanished gods, Altars unincensed, fanes undecked, Eternal systems flown or wrecked; Through trackless centuries that grant To the poor trudge refreshment scant, Age after age, pants on to find A melting mirage of the mind. But feeling never wanders far, Content to fare with things that are."

"I love the doubt, the dark, the fear, That still surroundeth all things here. I love the mystery, nor seek to solve; Content to let the stars revolve, Nor ask to have their meaning clear. Enough for me, enough to feel; To let the mystic shadows steal Into a land whither I cannot follow. To see the stealthy sunlight leave Dewy dingle, dappled hollow; To watch, when falls the hour of eve, Quiet shadows on a quiet hill; To watch, to wonder, and be still."

"My virgin sense of sound was steeped In the music of young streams; And roses through the casement peeped, And scented all my dreams."

"[…] faded smiles oft linger in the face, While grief's first flakes fall silent on the head!"

"Life seems like a haunted wood, where we tremble and crouch and cry."

"So, timely you came, and well you chose, You came when most needed, my winter rose. From the snow I pluck you, and fondly press Your leaves 'twixt the leaves of my leaflessness."

"Who loves his country never forfeits heaven."

"Never fear to weep; For tears are summer showers to the soul, To keep it fresh and green."

"[…] there is no love, That merits such high christening, but is built Firm upon some foundation out of sight; God, country, virtue, something not ourself, To which ourself is nothing, save the proof Of its invisible sureness."

"Your logic may be good, But dialectics never saved a soul."

"Death is the looking-glass of life wherein Each man may scan the aspect of his deeds."

"Friendship, 'tis said, is love without his wings, And friendship, sir, is sweet enough for me."

"Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law, Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will."

"Friendship craves The commerce of the mind, not the exchange Of emulous feasts that foster sycophants."

"Let your house Be spacious more than splendid, and be books And busts your most conspicuous furniture."

"And Clara dies that Claribel may dance."

"Lo, where huge London, huger day by day, O'er six fair counties spreads its hideous sway."

"Then, without toil, by vale and mountain side, Men found their few and simple wants supplied; Plenty, like dew, dropped subtle from the air, And Earth's fair gifts rose prodigal as prayer. Love, with no charms except its own to lure, Was swiftly answered by a love as pure. No need for wealth; each glittering fruit and flower, Each star, each streamlet, made the maiden's dower."

"A person of the right sort is one who has a solid grasp and realistic apprehension of people and things as they are, an irresistible inclination to transfigure them according to his imagination, and an inexhaustible supply of philosophic humour."

"To homes pervaded by charm, as to works of Art that approach perfection, the more happily constituted minds say 'Yes' without any qualification. The proper homage due to them is absolute assent."

"[T]he charm of a half-neglected old garden arises from its having, once upon a time, not been neglected."

"All imitation is exaggeration."

"Goodnight! Now dwindle wan and low The embers of the afterglow, And slowly over leaf and lawn Is twilight's dewy curtain drawn."

"[P]eople who canalise their lives and prearrange their enjoyments lose much of the enchantment which attends the guiding beneficence of chance."

"It is always delightful to have one's feelings expressed by some one else in language of enthusiasm one might oneself be afraid to employ."

"Men preach Philosophy, women practise it."

"One must be intoxicated by scenery, in order to appreciate it. Tranquil survey is not enough, and scrutinising curiosity is fatal."

"[A]mbition should be spoken of as not the last, but the first infirmity of noble minds, of which they gradually purge themselves as they grow more mature."

"A writer cannot take his occupation too seriously. He cannot take himself too lightly."

"If you are not something of a philosopher,—and by philosophy I understand a serene temper, and the maintaining of an equable mind under the sharpest disappointments,—I do not advise you to cultivate, or at any rate to grow enamoured of, a garden."

"Whatever else he may do, a critic reveals and criticises himself."

"[H]e who saves an ancient tree does better even than he who plants a new one."

"I long for poems of an inner harmony in utter contrast to the chaos in which they exist. Insofar as poetry has a social function it is to awaken sleepers by other means than shock."

"It is said he made his earth-journey, and lost what he sought. It is said they felled him and cut up his limbs for firewood. And it is said his head still sang and was swept out to sea singing."

"By dawn he was gone. We have stood here since, in our new life. We have waited. He does not return."

"The music reached us. Clumsily, stumbling over our own roots, rustling our leaves in answer, we moved, we followed."

"And I in terror but not in doubt of what I must do in anguish, in haste, wrenched from the earth root after root, the soil heaving and cracking, the moss tearing asunder — and behind me the others: my brothers forgotten since dawn. In the forest they too had heard, and were pulling their roots in pain out of a thousand years' layers of dead leaves, rolling the rocks away, breaking themselves out of their depths."

"Fire he sang, that trees fear, and I, a tree, rejoiced in its flames. New buds broke forth from me though it was full summer. As though his lyre (now I knew its name) were both frost and fire, its chords flamed up to the crown of me. I was seed again. I was fern in the swamp. I was coal."

"He told of journeys, of where sun and moon go while we stand in dark, of an earth-journey he dreamed he would take some day deeper than roots ... He told of the dreams of man, wars, passions, griefs, and I, a tree, understood words – ah, it seemed my thick bark would split like a sapling's that grew too fast in the spring when a late frost wounds it."

"Then as he sang it was no longer sounds only that made the music: he spoke, and as no tree listens I listened, and language came into my roots out of the earth, into my bark out of the air, into the pores of my greenest shoots gently as dew and there was no word he sang but I knew its meaning."

"I was the first to see him, for I grew out on the pasture slope, beyond the forest. He was a man, it seemed. . ."

"I love them for finding what I can't find,and for loving me for the line I wrote, and for forgetting it so that a thousand times, till death finds them, they may discover it again, in other lines in other happenings. And for wanting to know it, forassuming there is such a secret, yes, for that most of all."

"Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.I who don't know the secret wrote the line."

"The world is not with us enough. O taste and see."

"I like the juicy stem of grass that grows within the coarser leaf folded round, and the butteryellow glowin the narrow flute from which the morning-glory opens blue and cool on a hot morning."

"I like to find what's not found at once, but lieswithin something of another nature, in repose, distinct."