"I believe His name should be placed first on the list of men, within my own range of knowledge, who have raised and changed the spirit of modern art: raised in absolute attainment; changed in direction of temper."

"Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die. Surely the earth, that's wise being very old, Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high, Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold. We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd, Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky."

"Now kiss, and think that there are really those, My own high-bosom'd beauty, who increase Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way! Through many years they toil; then on a day They die not, — for their life was death, — but cease; And round their narrow lips the mould falls close."

"When all desire at last and all regret Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain, What shall assuage the unforgotten pain And teach the unforgetful to forget?"

"Watch thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die."

"Each hour until we meet is as a bird That wings from far his gradual way along The rustling covert of my soul."

"Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone, But as the meaning of all things that are."

"Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth: can I Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath Even at this moment haply quickeneth The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh Though screen'd and hid, shall walk the daylight here."

"Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell."

"At length their long kiss severed, with sweet smart: And as the last slow sudden drops are shed From sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled, So singly flagged the pulses of each heart."

"Beauty like hers is genius."

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

"Even as the moon grows queenlier in mid-space When the sky darkens, and her cloud-rapt car Thrills with intenser radiance from afar,— So lambent, lady, beams thy sovereign grace When the drear soul desires thee."

"And Love, our light at night and shade at noon, Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day."

"Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die Outstretch'd in the sun's warmth upon the shore, Thou say'st: "Man's measur'd path is all gone o'er: Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh, Man clomb until he touch'd the truth; and I, Even I, am he whom it was destin'd for." How should this be? Art thou then so much more Than they who sow'd, that thou shouldst reap thereby?"

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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"

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"... 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."

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

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

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

"The well of true wit is truth itself."

"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."

"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."

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

"Cynicism is intellectual dandyism."

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

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

"What are we first? First, animals; and next Intelligences at a leap; on whom Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb, And all that draweth on the tomb for text. Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun: Beneath whose light the shadow loses form. We are the lords of life, and life is warm. Intelligence and instinct now are one. But nature says: 'My children most they seem When they least know me: therefore I decree That they shall suffer.' Swift doth young Love flee, And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream. Then if we study Nature we are wise."

"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!"

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

"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."

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

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

"Kissing don't last; cookery do!"

"Perfect simplicity is unconsciously audacious."