All Quotes

"Thy light alone like mist o'er mountains driven, Or music by the night-wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream."

"I vow'd that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in vision'd bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatch'd with me the envious night: They know that never joy illum'd my brow Unlink'd with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou, O awful , Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express."

"The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past; there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been! Thus let thy power, which like the truth Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply Its calm, to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee, Whom, fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind."

"Then black despair, The shadow of a starless night, was thrown Over the world in which I moved alone."

"A wild dissolving bliss Over my frame he breathed, approaching near, And bent his eyes of kindling tenderness Near mine, and on my lips impressed a lingering kiss."

"Can man be free if woman be a slave?"

"With hue like that when some great painter dips His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse."

"Fear not the future, weep not for the past."

"I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: — Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away."

"I love all waste And solitary places; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be."

"It is our will That thus enchains us to permitted ill. We might be otherwise, we might be all We dream of happy, high, majestical. Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek, But in our mind? and if we were not weak, Should we be less in deed than in desire?"

"Me — who am as a nerve o'er which do creep The else unfelt oppressions of this earth, And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth, When all beside was cold: — that thou on me Shouldst rain these plagues of blistering agony!"

"Those who inflict must suffer, for they see The work of their own hearts, and this must be Our chastisement or recompense."

"Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong; They learn in suffering what they teach in song."

"O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth."

"Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them."

"Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!"

"Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

"As I lay asleep in Italy There came a voice from over the Sea, And with great power it forth led me To walk in the visions of Poesy."

"I met Murder on the way — He had a mask like Castlereagh — Very smooth he looked, yet grim; Seven blood-hounds followed him."

"All were fat; and well they might Be in admirable plight, For one by one, and two by two, He tossed them human hearts to chew."

"And many more Destructions played In this ghastly masquerade, All disguised, even to the eyes, Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies."

"Last came Anarchy: he rode On a white horse, splashed with blood; He was pale even to the lips, Like Death in the Apocalypse."

"And he wore a kingly crown; And in his grasp a sceptre shone; On his brow this mark I saw —"

"And with glorious triumph, they Rode through England proud and gay, Drunk as with intoxication Of the wine of desolation."

"My father Time is weak and gray With waiting for a better day; See how idiot-like he stands, Fumbling with his palsied hands!"

"What is Freedom? — ye can tell That which slavery is, too well — For its very name has grown To an echo of your own."

"Thou art Justice — ne'er for gold May thy righteous laws be sold As laws are in England — thou Shield'st alike the high and low."

"What if English toil and blood Was poured forth, even as a flood? It availed, Oh, Liberty, To dim, but not extinguish thee."

"Spirit, Patience, Gentleness, All that can adorn and bless Art thou — let deeds, not words, express Thine exceeding loveliness."

"Let the blue sky overhead, The green earth on which ye tread, All that must eternal be Witness the solemnity."

"From the haunts of daily life Where is waged the daily strife With common wants and common cares Which sows the human heart with tares."

"Be your strong and simple words Keen to wound as sharpened swords, And wide as targes let them be, With their shade to cover ye."

"Stand ye calm and resolute, Like a forest close and mute, With folded arms and looks which are Weapons of unvanquished war."

"The old laws of England — they Whose reverend heads with age are gray, Children of a wiser day; And whose solemn voice must be Thine own echo — Liberty!"

"Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number — Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you — Ye are many — they are few."

"I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder."

"I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die."

"Nought cared this Body for wind or weather When and I lived in't together."

"Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree; Oh the joys that came down shower-like, Of friendship, love, and liberty, Ere I was old!"

"Like some poor nigh-related guest, That may not rudely be dismist; Yet hath outstayed his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile."

"In many ways doth the full heart reveal The presence of the love it would conceal."

"Summer has set in with its usual severity."

"My eyes make pictures, when they are shut."

"I counted two and seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks!"

"The river Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne; But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?"

"The happiness of life ... is made up of minute fractions — the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling."

"Beneath this sod A poet lies, or that which once seemed he — Oh, lift a thought in prayer for S.T.C! That he, who many a year, with toil of breath, Found death in life, may here find life in death."

"If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awake — Aye! and what then?"

"Yon crescent Moon, as fix'd as if it grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue."