Epic Poets

"There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object."

"The sweet converse of an innocent mind."

"But strength alone though of the Muses born Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn, Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs, And thorns of life; forgetting the great end Of poesy, that it should be a friend To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man."

"A drainless shower Of light is poesy; ’tis the supreme of power; ’Tis might half slumb’ring on its own right arm."

"O for ten years, that I may overwhelm Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed That my own soul has to itself decreed."

"Stop and consider! life is but a day; A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way From a tree's summit."

"The poetry of earth is never dead."

"And other spirits there are standing apart Upon the forehead of the age to come; These, these will give the world another heart, And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings in a distant mart? Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb."

"Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne, Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise, Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

"E’en like the passage of an angel’s tear That falls through the clear ether silently."

"To one who has been long in city pent, ’Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven."

"Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain, Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies."

"Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind Along the reedy stream; a half-heard strain, Full of sweet desolation—balmy pain."

"Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop From low hung branches; little space they stop; But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek; Then off at once, as in a wanton freak: Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings Pausing upon their yellow flutterings."

"Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds; Where swarms of minnows show their little heads, Staying their wavy bodies ’gainst the streams, To taste the luxury of sunny beams Temper’d with coolness."

"Open afresh your round of starry folds, Ye ardent marigolds!"

"And then there crept A little noiseless noise among the leaves, Born of the very sigh that silence heaves."

"I stood tip-toe upon a little hill, The air was cooling, and so very still, That the sweet buds which with a modest pride Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems, Had not yet lost those starry diadems Caught from the early sobbing of the morn."

"I can scarcely bid you good-bye, even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow. God bless you!"

"You might curb your magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore."

"If I should die," said I to myself, "I have left no immortal work behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory — but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered."

"I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion – I have shudder’d at it – I shudder no more – I could be martyr’d for my Religion – Love is my religion – I could die for that – I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet."

"Some think I have lost that poetical ardour and fire 'tis said I once had- the fact is, perhaps I have; but, instead of that, I hope I shall substitute a more thoughtful and quiet power."

"I have nothing to speak of but my self-and what can I say but what I feel"

"I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute."

"Call the world if you please "The vale of soul-making.""

"I myself am pursuing the same instinctive course as the veriest human animal you can think of — I am, however young, writing at random — straining at particles of light in the midst of a great darkness — without knowing the bearing of any one assertion, of any one opinion. Yet may I not in this be free from sin?"

"Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced — Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it."

"A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory — and very few eyes can see the mystery of life — a life like the Scriptures, figurative... Lord Byron cuts a figure, but he is not figurative. Shakespeare led a life of allegory: his works are the comments on it."

"A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence; because he has no identity — he is continually informing — and filling some other body."

"The poetical character... is not itself — it has no self — it is every thing and nothing — It has no character — it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it fair or foul, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated. — It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philospher, delights the camelion poet."

"I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death."

"I have written independently without Judgment. I may write independently, and with Judgment, hereafter. The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself — That which is creative must create itself — In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a, silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest."

"I begin to get a little acquainted with my own strength and weakness. Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works."

"There is an awful warmth about my heart like a load of immortality."

"I am certain I have not a right feeling towards women - at this moment I am striving to be just to them, but I cannot. Is it because they fall so far beneath my boyish imagination? When I was a schoolboy I thought a fair woman a pure Goddess; my mind was a soft nest in which some one of them slept, though she knew it not."

"I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me."

"Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses: we read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author."

"Every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer."

"Scenery is fine — but human nature is finer."

"In Poetry I have a few axioms, and you will see how far I am from their centre. I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity — it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance — Its touches of Beauty should never be halfway thereby making the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural to him — shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the luxury of twilight — but it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it — and this leads me on to another axiom. That if Poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all."

"Many have original minds who do not think it — they are led away by custom — Now it appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own citadel."

"We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us — and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle or amaze with itself, but with its subject."

"Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject."

"Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers."

"Works of genius are the first things in this world."

"They will explain themselves — as all poems should do without any comment."

"At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously — I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."

"The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth."

"I scarcely remember counting upon happiness — I look not for it if it be not in the present hour — nothing startles me beyond the moment. The setting sun will always set me to rights, or if a sparrow come before my Window I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel."