"The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog; not though in that stage of development he should puff and blow himself till he bursts with windy adulation at the heels of the laureled ox."

"To wipe off the froth of falsehood from the foaming lips of inebriated virtue, when fresh from the sexless orgies of morality and reeling from the delirious riot of religion, may doubtless be a charitable office."

"A blatant Bassarid of Boston, a rampant Maenad of Massachusetts."

"It is long since Mr. Carlyle expressed his opinion that if any poet or other literary creature could really be "killed off by one critique" or many, the sooner he was so despatched the better; a sentiment in which I for one humbly but heartily concur."

"Glory to Man in the highest! for Man is the master of things."

"But God, if a God there be, is the substance of men which is man."

"O slain and spent and sacrificed People, the grey-grown speechless Christ."

"Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and lives."

"I shall go my ways, tread out my measure, Fill the days of my daily breath With fugitive things not good to treasure, Do as the world doth, say as it saith; But if we had loved each other — O sweet, Had you felt, lying under the palms of your feet, The heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasure To feel you tread it to dust and death — Ah, had I not taken my life up and given All that life gives and the years let go, The wine and honey, the balm and leaven, The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low? Come life, come death, not a word be said; Should I lose you living, and vex you dead? I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven, If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?"

"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."

"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."

"It is not much that a man can save On the sands of life, in the straits of time, Who swims in sight of the great third wave That never a swimmer shall cross or climb. Some waif washed up with the strays and spars That ebb-tide shows to the shore and the stars; Weed from the water, grass from a grave, A broken blossom, a ruined rhyme. There will no man do for your sake, I think, What I would have done for the least word said. I had wrung life dry for your lips to drink, Broken it up for your daily bread: Body for body and blood for blood, As the flow of the full sea risen to flood That yearns and trembles before it sink, I had given, and lain down for you, glad and dead."

"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!"

"We had stood as the sure stars stand, and moved As the moon moves, loving the world; and seen Grief collapse as a thing disproved, Death consume as a thing unclean. Twain halves of a perfect heart, made fast Soul to soul while the years fell past; Had you loved me once, as you have not loved; Had the chance been with us that has not been. I have put my days and dreams out of mind, Days that are over, dreams that are done. Though we seek life through, we shall surely find There is none of them clear to us now, not one."

"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!"

"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."

"There lived a singer in France of old By the tideless dolorous midland sea. In a land of sand and ruin and gold There shone one woman, and none but she."

"I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide."

"I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea. I will go down to her, I and no other, Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me."

"Change lays not her hand upon truth."

"Till life forget and death remember, Till thou remember and I forget."

"Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow, How can thine heart be full of the spring? A thousand summers are over and dead. What hast thou found in the spring to follow? What hast thou found in thine heart to sing? What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?"

"Those eyes the greenest of things blue The bluest of things grey."

"Ah that such sweet things should be fleet, Such fleet things sweet!"

"Gone deeper than all plummets sound."

"O bitterness of things too sweet!"

"And the best and the worst of this is That neither is most to blame, If you have forgotten my kisses And I have forgotten your name."

"I remember the way we parted, The day and the way we met; You hoped we were both broken-hearted And knew we should both forget."

"For in the days we know not of Did fate begin Weaving the web of days that wove Your doom."

"Pale, beyond porch and portal, Crowned with calm leaves, she stands Who gathers all things mortal With cold immortal hands."

"Though one were fair as roses His beauty clouds and closes."

"From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no man lives forever, That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea."

"Our way is where God knows And Love knows where: We are in Love's hand to-day."

"Marvellous mercies and infinite love."

"Ah, yet would God this flesh of mine might be Where air might wash and long leaves cover me; Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers, Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea."

"And lo, between the sundawn and the sun His day's work and his night's work are undone: And lo, between the nightfall and the light, He is not, and none knoweth of such an one."

"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."

"Forget that I remember And dream that I forget."

"I shall remember while the light lives yet And in the night time I shall not forget."

"She hath wasted with fire thine high places, She hath hidden and marred and made sad The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces Of gods that were goodly and glad. She slays, and her hands are not bloody; She moves as a moon in the wane, White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy, Our Lady of Pain."

"For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose’s, And love is more cruel than lust. Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives"

"Despair the twin-born of devotion."

"Ah beautiful passionate body That never has ached with a heart!"

"O splendid and sterile Dolores, Our Lady of Pain."

"Change in a trice The lilies and languors of virtue For the raptures and roses of vice."

"We shift and bedeck and bedrape us, Thou art noble and nude and antique."

"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 grey grief; If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf."

"For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span; A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man. So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep. For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep."

"Though these that were Gods are dead, and thou being dead art a God, Though before thee the throned Cytherean be fallen, and hidden her head, Yet thy kingdom shall pass, Galilean, thy dead shall go down to thee dead."