"It may seem fanciful, but to me the violet is the very emblem of woman's love; it springs up in secret; it hides its perfume even when gathered ; how timidly its deep blue leaves bend on their slight stem ! The resemblance may be carried yet further — woman's love is but beautiful in its purity ; let the hot breath of passion once sully it, and its beauty is departed — thus as the summer advances, the violet loses its fragrance ; June comes, but its odours are fled — the heart too has its June ; the flower may remain, but its fragrance is gone for ever."

"There is truth and certainty in our first impressions. First impressions are natural monitors, and nature is a true guide."

"The voyage appeared short, for I had nothing to anticipate."

"Yes; for, while memory languidly is fetching Her treasures from the depths which they have lain among, A fragile hand — how thin — how weak — is sadly sketching Figures and fancies that cell's white walls along. On the lip there is a murmur — It is the swan's last song."

"Like a human thought in quest Of a future hour."

"Lonely — lonely on the shore — Where the mighty waters roar, Would that she could pass them o'er! Doth the maiden stand."

"Grief hath stern and silent powers, And her house is proud ; Not to-day's cold guarded hours Is despair allow'd ; But, shut out with haughty fears, Pride with daylight disappears, From the lovely Zegri Ladye — The Ladye weeping there."

"Ever sits the lady weeping — Weeping night and day — One perpetual vigil keeping, Till life pass away, And she join the seven who sleep."

"We change, and others change, while recollection Fain would renew what it can but recall : Dark are life's dreams, and weary its affection, And cold its hopes, — and yet I felt them all, A long while ago."

"Upon the sunny grass-plot stood the dial, Whose measured time strange contrast with ours made : Ah ! was it omen of life's after trial, That even then the hours were told in shade, In the old, old times, The dear old times ?"

"Life is but the spirit's prison, Where its wings are furl'd, Stretching to their flight in vain, — Seeking that eternal home Which is in a world to come."

"Lonely by the moonlit waters Does the conqueror stand, Yet unredden'd by the slaughters Of his mighty band. Yet his laurel wants a leaf. There he stands, sad, silent, lonely ; For his hope is vain : He has reached that river only To return again."

"To dream and to create has been my fate, Alone, apart from life's more busy scheming ; I fear to think that I may find too late Vain was the toil, and idle was the dreaming."

"We know not of its presence, though its power Be on the gradual round of every hour, Now flinging down an empire, now a flower."

"How much of the full heart must be A seal'd book at whose contents we tremble ?"

"We might have been !— these are but common words, And yet they make the sum of life's bewailing;"

"A day may be a destiny ; for life Lives in but little— but that little teems With some one chance, the balance of all time"

"Farewell, and when to-morrow Seems little, like to-day, And we find life's deepest sorrow Melts gradual away ; Yet do not quite forget me."

"They named him — ah ! yet Do I start at that name ;"

"When every worldly thought is utterly forsaken, Comes the starry midnight, felt by life's gifted few; Then will the spirit from its earthly sleep awaken To a being more intense, more spiritual and true. So doth the soul awaken, Like that youth to night's fair queen !"

"Lone upon a mountain, the pine-trees wailing round him, Lone upon a mountain the Grecian youth is laid ; Sleep, mystic sleep, for many a year has bound him, Yet his beauty, like a statue's pale and fair, is undecay'd. When will he awaken ?"

"Once the buds of the pomegranate Paled beside her cheek's warm dye, Now 'tis like the last sad planet Waning in the morning sky — She has wept away its red."

"One sweet whisper from her came ; And he drank to catch her breath, — Wine and sigh alike are death !"

"Well he knows his course has hasted Through delicious sin, Borne tumultuously along. Never have the stars above Chronicled such utter love."

"She is but the type of all, Mortal or celestial, Who allow the heart, In its passion and its power, On some dark and fated hour, To assert its part."

"Like a marble statue placed, Looking o'er the watery waste, With its white fixed gaze ; There the Goddess sits, her eye Raised to the unpitying sky ;"

"It was hidden in a wild wood Of the larch and pine ; It had been unto his childhood Solitude and shrine, — There he dream'd the hours away."

"All the fairest things of earth, Art's creations have their birth — Still from love and death."

"A word — a name — Conjures the past before me, till it grows More actual than the present : that — I see But with the common eyes of daily life, Imperfect and impatient ; but the past Out of imagination works its truth, And grows distinct with poetry."

"As steals the dew along the flower, So stole thy smile on me ; I cannot tell the day, nor hour I first loved thee !"

"Experience has rude lessons, and we grow Like what we have been taught too late to know, And yet we hate ourselves for being so."

"In the east the day was reddening, When the warriors pass'd ; In the west the night was deadening, As they looked their last ; As they looked their last on him — He, their comrade — their commander — He, the earth's adored — He, the godlike Alexander ! Who can wield his sword ? As they went their eyes were dim, The silver-shielded warriors, The warriors of the world !"

"The Future is more present than the Past : For one look back, a thousand on we cast ; And hope doth ever memory outlast."

"Ah, the sweet present ! — should it not suffice ? Not to humanity, which vainly tries To lift the curtain that may never rise !"

"Around his neck a ribbon clung, Close to his heart a picture hung : I saw the face — it was not mine ; I saw, too, a small dagger shine, A curious toy — you know the rest."

"If blasted hopes and ruin'd name, And all the venom Love lends Shame — The violent death, and rabble eye, To look upon its agony ; If these are not enough to win A pardon for Earth's deadliest sin, Words will not, cannot! — never dare Tell me it may be won by prayer ! The coward prayer, the coward tear, Not from remorse wrung, but from fear!"

"Hope is a timid thing, Fearful, and weak, and born in suffering; At least, such Hope as human life can bring."

"And when the reckless crowd among I speak of one sweet art, How lightly can I name the song, Which yet has wrung my heart ! That lute and heart alike have chords Not to be spoken of in words —"

"O no, my heart can never be Again in lighted hopes the same — The love that lingers there for thee Has more of ashes than of flame."

"I stood between the meeting Years, The coming and the past, And I ask'd of the future one, Wilt thou be like the last?"

"Her heart and lip were music, albeit one Who marvell'd at what her sweet self had done; Who breathed for Love, and pined to find that Fame In answer to her lute's soft summons came; See, the eye droops in sadness, as to shun That which it dared not gaze on, Glory's sun."

"Her face was all too bright for tears, she gave Sighs to the wind, and weeping to the wave, And left a lesson unto after-times, Too little dwelt upon in minstrel rhymes, A lesson how inconstancy should be Repaid again by like inconstancy."

"Where had thy life been at this hour, Had not my Love been more than my Power ? — Away, if thou fearest, — love never must, Never can live with one shade of distrust."

"By turns the woman and the queen, And each as the other had never been."

"Literature soon becomes a power, not what it once was, a passion; but literary success, like all others, is only to be obtained, and retained, by labour — and labour and inclination do not always go together. Take all our most eminent writers, and the quantity of work, hard work, they have got through, will be found enormous and perpetual. Literature, as a profession, allows little leisure, and less indulgence."

"The history of most fictions would be far stranger than the fictions themselves ; but it would be a dark and sad chronicle."

"By-the-by, this doctrine of perpetual transmigration would be a curious plea to urge for the non-fulfilment of former engagements ; seven years is I believe the term allotted for the entire change. Now, might not a man encumbered with debt plead at the expiration of the period in the Courts of Westminster, that he was not the person who actually contracted those debts ? Or might not an inconstant couple sue for a divorce, on the plea that neither were the individuals who originally married ?"

"The sweetest and best qualities of our nature may be turned to evil, by the strong force of circumstance and of temptation."

"But the passion of jealousy cannot exist without the passion of love, and is like its parent, creative, impetuous, and credulous."

"It is a cruel proof of the want of generosity in human nature, that an affection too utterly self-sacrificing always meets with an evil return."