Poets From England

"For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago."

"The best of what we do and are, Just God, forgive!"

"The poet's darling."

"We meet thee, like a pleasant thought, When such are wanted."

"A noticeable man, with large gray eyes."

"Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

"Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream."

"A jolly place," said he, "in times of old! But something ails it now: the spot is cursed."

"And he is oft the wisest man Who is not wise at all."

"Until a man might travel twelve stout miles, Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn."

"And often, glad no more, We wear a face of joy because We have been glad of yore."

"A happy youth, and their old age Is beautiful and free."

"Yet sometimes, when the secret cup Of still and serious thought went round, It seemed as if he drank it up, He felt with spirit so profound."

"Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure,— Sighed to think I read a book, Only read, perhaps, by me."

"The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one!"

"The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face."

"A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye; Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky."

"One of those heavenly days that cannot die."

"Full twenty times was Peter feared, For once that Peter was respected."

"As in the eye of Nature he has lived, So in the eye of Nature let him die!"

"Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel To self-reproach."

"The fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart."

"The bane of all that dread the Devil."

"Up! up! my friend, and quit your books, Or surely you 'll grow double! Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks! Why all this toil and trouble?"

"And 't is my faith, that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes."

"Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on, Through words and things, a dim and perilous way."

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

"In years that bring the philosophic mind."

"Oh for a single hour of that Dundee Who on that day the word of onset gave!"

"Where music dwells Lingering and wandering on as loth to die, Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality."

"Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more."

"But who would force the soul tilts with a straw Against a champion cased in adamant."

"Meek Walton's heavenly memory."

"The feather, whence the pen Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men, Dropped from an Angel's wing."

"Habit rules the unreflecting herd."

"As thou these ashes, little brook! will bear Into the Avon, Avon to the tide Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, Into main ocean they, this deed accurst, An emblem yields to friends and enemies How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed."

"Babylon, Learned and wise, hath perished utterly, Nor leaves her speech one word to aid the sigh That would lament her."

"Yet tears to human suffering are due; And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown Are mourned by man, and not by man alone."

"Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams."

"He spake of love, such love as spirits feel In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,— The past unsighed for, and the future sure."

"Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, Brought from a pensive though a happy place."

"Mightier far Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway Of magic potent over sun and star, Is Love, though oft to agony distrest, And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast."

"For the gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul."

"And mighty poets in their misery dead."

"Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach Of ordinary men."

"That heareth not the loud winds when they call, And moveth all together, if it moves at all."

"I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride; Of Him who walked in glory and in joy Following his plough, along the mountain-side: By our own spirits are we deified: We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness."

"But how can he expect that others should Build for him, sow for him, and at his call Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?"

"As high as we have mounted in delight, In our dejection do we sink as low."

"Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray."