"It's wiser being good than bad; It's safer being meek than fierce; It's fitter being sane than mad. My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That after Last returns the First, Though a wide compass round be fetched; That what began best can't end worst, Nor what God blessed once prove accurst."

"Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face. . . . . . . . No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, The heroes of old; Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears"

"This could but have happened once,— And we missed it, lost it forever."

"So may a glory from defect arise."

"How sad and bad and mad it was! But then, how it was sweet!"

"What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me."

"Then welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!"

"There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; What was good shall be good, with for evil so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round."

"Was there nought better than to enjoy? No feat which, done, would make time break, And let us pent-up creatures through Into eternity, our due? No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?"

"A people is but the attempt of many To rise to the completer life of one; And those who live as models for the mass Are singly of more value than they all."

"And inasmuch as feeling, the East's gift, Is quick and transient,—comes, and lo! is gone, While Northern thought is slow and durable."

"He who did well in war just earns the right To begin doing well in peace."

"Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you, And did you speak to him again? How strange it seems, and new!"

"How he lies in his rights of a man! Death has done all death can. And absorbed in the new life he leads, He recks not, he heeds Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike On his senses alike, And are lost in the solemn and strange Surprise of the change."

"Round and round, like a dance of snow In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go Floating the women faded for ages, Sculptured in stone on the poet's pages."

"Only I discern Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn."

"If two lives join, there is oft a scar. They are one and one, with a shadowy third; One near one is too far."

"That great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it."

"O woman-country! wooed not wed, Loved all the more by earth's male-lands, Laid to their hearts instead."

"What's come to perfection perishes. Things learned on earth we shall practise in heaven; Works done least rapidly Art most cherishes."

"They are perfect; how else?—they shall never change: We are faulty; why not?—we have time in store."

"We shall march prospering,—not thro' his presence; Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre; Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire."

"Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat."

"Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years."

"The sin I impute to each frustrute ghost Is—the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say."

"When the liquor's out, why clink the cannikin?"

"Oh never star Was lost here but it rose afar."

"Just my vengeance complete, The man sprang to his feet, Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed! So, I was afraid!"

"And I have written three books on the soul, Proving absurd all written hitherto, And putting us to ignorance again."

"The sprinkled isles, Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea."

"Thy rare gold ring of verse (the poet praised) Linking our England to his Italy."

"It is the glory and good of Art That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth,—to mouths like mine, at least."

"Inscribe all human effort with one word, Artistry's haunting curse, the Incomplete!"

"White shall not neutralize the black, nor good Compensate bad in man, absolve him so: Life's business being just the terrible choice."

"Why comes temptation, but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph?"

"The curious crime, the fine Felicity and flower of wickedness."

"What wonder if the novel claim had clashed With old requirement, seemed to supersede Too much the customary law? But, brave, Thou at first prompting of what I call God, And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend, Accept the obligation laid on thee, Mother elect, to save the unborn child, As brute and bird do, reptile and the fly, Ay and, I nothing doubt, even tree, shrub, plant And flower o' the field, all in a common pact To worthily defend the trust of trusts, Life from the Ever Living: — didst resist — Anticipate the office that is mine — And with his own sword stay the upraised arm, The endeavour of the wicked, and defend Him who, — again in my default, — was there For visible providence: one less true than thou To touch, i' the past, less practised in the right, Approved less far in all docility To all instruction, — how had such an one Made scruple "Is this motion a decree?""

"Oh child that didst despise thy life so much When it seemed only thine to keep or lose, How the fine ear felt fall the first low word "Value life, and preserve life for My sake!""

"Forgive me this digression — that I stand Entranced awhile at Law's first beam, outbreak O' the business, when the Count's good angel bade "Put up thy sword, born enemy to the ear, "And let Law listen to thy difference!" And Law does listen and compose the strife, Settle the suit, how wisely and how well! On our Pompilia, faultless to a fault, Law bends a brow maternally severe, Implies the worth of perfect chastity, By fancying the flaw she cannot find."