"They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields, They cried so loud I could not sleep: For fifty thousand shillings down I would not sail again with sheep."

"Autumn grows old: he, like some simple one, In Summer's castaway is strangely clad"

"People are not to be blamed for their doubts, but that they make no effort to arrive at the truth."

"Cats — by day the most docile of God's creatures, everyone of them in the night enlisting under the devil's banner — took the place by storm after the human voice had ceased."

"What a glorious time of the year is this [Spring]! With the warm sun travelling through serene skies, the air clear and fresh above you, which instils new blood in the body, making one defiantly tramp the earth, kicking the snows aside in the scorn of action."

"This man has talent, that man genius, And here's the strange and cruel difference: Talent gives pence and his reward is gold, Genius gives gold and gets no more than pence."

"Let us not judge life by its number of breaths, but by the number of times that breath is held, or lost, either under a deep emotion caused by love, or when we stand before an object of interest or beauty."

"What sweet, what happy days had I, When dreams made Time Eternity!"

"From my own kind I only learn How foolish comfort is"

"Thou shalt not laugh, thou shalt not romp, Let's grimly kiss with bated breath; As quietly and solemnly As Life when it is kissing Death."

"this extraordinary and memorable being, who, for all his humility, bore about him something of the primitive splendour and directness of the Elizabethan age"

"No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night. No time to turn at Beauty's glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance."

"What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare."

"I also love a quiet place That's green, away from all mankind; A lonely pool, and let a tree Sigh with her bosom over me."

"Go you and, with such glorious hues, Live with proud peacocks in green parks."

"It was the Rainbow gave thee birth, And left thee all her lovely hues."

"My soul is like this cloudy, flaming opal ring."

"All art is a form of artifice.For in art there can be no prejudices."

"And I would have, now love is over, An end to all, an end: I cannot, having been your lover, Stoop to become your friend!"

"The wind is rising on the sea, The windy white foam-dancers leap; And the sea moans uneasily, And turns to sleep, and cannot sleep."

"The mystic too full of God to speak intelligibly to the world."

"Without charm there can be no fine literature, as there can be no perfect flower without fragrance."

"He knew that the whole mystery of beauty can never be comprehended by the crowd, and that while clearness is a virtue of style, perfect explicitness is not a necessary virtue."

"Sweet, can I sing you the song of your kisses? How soft is this one, how subtle this is, How fluttering swift as a bird's kiss that is, As a bird that taps at a leafy lattice; How this one clings and how that uncloses From bud to flower in the way of roses."

"They pass upon their old, tremulous feet, Creeping with little satchels down the street, And they remember, many years ago, Passing that way in silks. They wander, slow And solitary, through the city ways, And they alone remember those old days Men have forgotten."

"I have laid sorrow to sleep; Love sleeps. She who oft made me weep Now weeps."

"The gray-green stretch of sandy grass, Indefinitely desolate; A sea of lead, a sky of slate; Already autumn in the air, alas! One stark monotony of stone, The long hotel, acutely white, Against the after-sunset light Withers gray-green, and takes the grass's tone."

"O my child, who wronged you first, and began First the dance of death that you dance so well? Soul for soul: and I think the soul of a man Shall answer for yours in hell."

"Emmy's exquisite youth and her virginal air, Eyes and teeth in the flash of a musical smile, Come to me out of the past, and I see her there As I saw her once for a while."

"My life is like a music-hall, Where, in the impotence of rage, Chained by enchantment to my stall, I see myself upon the stage Dance to amuse a music-hall."

"The gipsy tents are on the down, The gipsy girls are here; And it's O to be off and away from the town With a gipsy for my dear!"

"They weave a slow andante as in sleep, Scaled yellow, swampy black, plague-spotted white; With blue and lidless eyes at watch they keep A treachery of silence; infinite."

"I heard the sighing of the reeds At noontide and at evening, And some old dream I had forgotten I seemed to be remembering."

"I have loved colours, and not flowers; Their motion, not the swallows wings; And wasted more than half my hours Without the comradeship of things."

"What we ask of him is, that he should find out for us more than we can find out for ourselves.... He must have the passion of a lover."

"Criticism is properly the rod of divination: a hazel switch for the discovery of buried treasure, not a birch twig for the castigation of offenders."

"Here in a little lonely room I am master of earth and sea, And the planets come to me."

"They are all gone into the world of light! And I alone sit lingering here; Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear."

"As men are killed by fighting, the truth is lost in disputing."

"Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven."

"Dear Night! this world's defeat; The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb; The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat Which none disturb! Christ's progress, and His prayer-time; The hours to which high Heaven doth chime."

"There is in God — some say — A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here Say it is late and dusky, because they See not all clear. O for that Night! where I in Him Might live invisible and dim!"

"Happy those early days, when I Shined in my angel-infancy! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race."

"When yet I had not walk'd above A mile or two from my first Love, And looking back, at that short space Could see a glimpse of His bright face; When on some gilded cloud or flower My gazing soul would dwell an hour, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity; Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, Or had the black art to dispense A several sin to every sense, But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness."

"Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move."

"I cannot reach it, and my striving eye Dazzles at it, as at eternity. Were now that chronicle alive, Those white designs which children drive, And the thoughts of each harmless hour, With their content too in my pow'r, Quickly would I make my path even, And by mere playing go to heaven."

"Why should I not love childhood still? Why, if I see a rock or shelf, Shall I from thence cast down myself? Or by complying with the world, From the same precipice be hurled? Those observations are but foul, Which make me wise to lose my soul. And yet the practice worldlings call Business, and weighty action all, Checking the poor child for his play, But gravely cast themselves away."

"Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span Where weeping Virtue parts with man; Where love without lust dwells, and bends What way we please without self-ends. An age of mysteries! which he Must live that would God's face see Which angels guard, and with it play, Angels! which foul men drive away."

"I saw Eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light. All calm, as it was bright; And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, Driv'n by the spheres Like a vast shadow moved; in which the world And all her train were hurled."

"I see them walking in an air of glory Whose light doth trample on my days, My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, Mere glimmering and decays."