Romantic Poets

"And sigh that only one thing has been lent To youth and age in common — discontent."

"This heart, I know, To be long lov’d was never fram’d; For something in its depths doth glow Too strange, too restless, too untam’d."

"Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew. In quiet she reposes: Ah! would that I did too."

"I am past thirty, and three parts iced over."

"Her cabin’d, ample Spirit, It flutter’d and fail’d for breath. To-night it doth inherit The vasty Hall of Death."

"Hark! ah, the nightingale — The tawny-throated! Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark! — what pain!"

"Sanity — that is the great virtue of the ancient literature; the want of that is the great defect of the modern, in spite of its variety and power."

"The same heart beats in every human breast."

"A man becomes aware of his life's flow... And there arrives a lull in the hot race."

"And then he thinks he knows The Hills where his life rose, And the Sea where it goes."

"This truth — to prove, and make thine own: ‘Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone.’"

"Peace, peace is what I seek, and public calm, Endless extinction of unhappy hates."

"Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals composing them are numerous, free, and active; but they are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity are employed in the service of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary man, taken by himself."

"It is a very great thing to be able to think as you like; but, after all, an important question remains: what you think."

"Hath man no second life? — Pitch this one high!"

"Was Christ a man like us? — Ah! let us try If we then, too, can be such men as he!"

"Nor bring, to see me cease to live, Some doctor full of phrase and fame, To shake his sapient head and give The ill he cannot cure a name."

"Ere the parting hour go by, Quick, thy tablets, Memory!"

"Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole: The mellow glory of the Attic stage."

"Fate gave, what Chance shall not control, His sad lucidity of soul."

"Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, Light half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will’d, Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill’d; For whom each year we see Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day — Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?"

"for it is not yet clear dawn. Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?"

"As ships becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail, at dawn of day Are scarce, long leagues apart, descried."

"Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie."

"The grave man, nicknamed Adam."

"’Tis possible, young sir, that some excess Mars youthful judgment and old men’s no less; Yet we must take our counsel as we may For (flying years this lesson still convey), ’Tis worst unwisdom to be overwise, And not to use, but still correct one’s eyes."

"My wind is turned to bitter north, That was so soft a south before; My sky, that shone so sunny bright, With foggy gloom is clouded o’er My gay green leaves are yellow-black, Upon the dank autumnal floor; For love, departed once, comes back No more again, no more."

"Dance on, dance on, we see, we see Youth goes, alack, and with it glee, A boy the old man ne’er can be; Maternal thirty scarce can find The sweet sixteen long left behind."

"... High-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them, Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above them, Matching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the wash-tub!"

"Our ills are worse than at their ease These blameless happy souls suspect, They only study the disease, Alas, who live not to detect."

"Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane, East wind and frost are safely gone; With zephyr mild and balmy rain The summer comes serenely on; Earth, air, and sun and skies combine To promise all that’s kind and fair:— But thou, O human heart of mine, Be still, contain thyself, and bear."

"Each for himself is still the rule We learn it when we go to school— The devil take the hindmost, O!"

"Thou shalt not covet, but tradition Approves all forms of competition."

"I watched them from the window, thy children at their play, And I thought of all my own dear friends, who were far, oh, far away, And childish loves, and childish cares, and a child’s own buoyant gladness Came gushing back again to me with a soft and solemn sadness; And feelings frozen up full long, and thoughts of long ago, Seemed to be thawing at my heart with a warm and sudden flow."

"O tell me, friends, while yet we part, And heart can yet be heard of heart, O tell me then, for what is it Our early plan of life we quit; From all our old intentions range, And why does all so wholly change? O tell me, friends, while yet we part!"

"Good, too, Logic, of course; in itself, but not in fine weather."

"No graven images may be Worshipped, except the currency."

"Thou shalt have one God only; who Would be at the expense of two?"

"Honour thy parents; that is, all From whom advancement may befall: Thou shalt not kill; but need’st not strive Officiously to keep alive."

"“There is no God,” the wicked saith, “And truly it’s a blessing, For what He might have done with us It’s better only guessing.”"

"That out of sight is out of mind Is true of most we leave behind."

"Say not the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not nor faileth, And as things have been, things remain;If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers— And, but for you, possess the field.For while the tired waves vainly breaking Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main.And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look! the land is bright."

"Do not adultery commit; Advantage rarely comes of it."

"Alas! the great world goes its way, And takes its truth from each new day; They do not quit, nor can retain, Far less consider it again."

"What voice did on my spirit fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost? ‘’Tis better to have fought and lost, Than never to have fought at all.’"

"Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say."

"Go; say not in thy heart, And what then were it accomplished, Were the wild impulse allayed, what were the use or the good! Go, when the instinct is stilled, and when the deed is accomplished, What thou bast done and shalt do, shall be declared to thee then. Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy spirit Say to thyself: It is good: yet is there better than it. This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little; Nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it."

"Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief; Or at least, faith unbelief."

"Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat, When it's so lucrative to cheat."

"... O musical chaff of old Athens, Dishes, and fishes, bird, beast, and sesquipedalian black-guard!"