"I do what many dream of, all their lives, — Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, And fail in doing. I could count twenty such On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, Who strive — you don't know how the others strive To paint a little thing like that you smeared Carelessly passing with your robes afloat — Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says, (I know his name, no matter) — so much less! Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. There burns a truer light of God in them, In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine."

"'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!"

"How good is man's life, the mere living! How fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses Forever in joy!"

"God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign we and they are his children, one family here."

"That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!"

"Oh, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf."

"What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all; Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold:"

"He gathers earth's whole good into his arms; Standing, as man now, stately, strong and wise, Marching to fortune, not surprised by her. One great aim, like a guiding-star, above— Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift His manhood to the height that takes the prize; A prize not near — lest overlooking earth He rashly spring to seize it — nor remote, So that he rest upon his path content: But day by day, while shimmering grows shine, And the faint circlet prophesies the orb, He sees so much as, just evolving these, The stateliness, the wisdom and the strength, To due completion, will suffice this life, And lead him at his grandest to the grave. After this star, out of a night he springs; A beggar's cradle for the throne of thrones He quits; so, mounting, feels each step he mounts, Nor, as from each to each exultingly He passes, overleaps one grade of joy. This, for his own good: — with the world, each gift Of God and man, — reality, tradition, Fancy and fact — so well environ him, That as a mystic panoply they serve — Of force, untenanted, to awe mankind, And work his purpose out with half the world, While he, their master, dexterously slipt From such encumbrance, is meantime employed With his own prowess on the other half. Thus shall he prosper, every day's success Adding, to what is he, a solid strength — An aery might to what encircles him, Till at the last, so life's routine lends help, That as the Emperor only breathes and moves, His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk Become a comfort or a portent, how He trails his ermine take significance, — Till even his power shall cease to be most power, And men shall dread his weakness more, nor dare Peril their earth its bravest, first and best, Its typified invincibility.Thus shall he go on, greatening, till he ends— The man of men, the spirit of all flesh, The fiery centre of an earthly world!"

"The heavens and earth stay as they were; my heart Beats as it beat: the truth remains the truth."

"When is man strong until he feels alone?"

"All service ranks the same with God,— With God, whose puppets, best and worst, Are we: there is no last nor first."

"In the morning of the world, When earth was nigher heaven than now."

"Some unsuspected isle in the far seas,— Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas."

"The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearl'd; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in His heaven— All's right with the world!"

"Say not "a small event!" Why "small"? Costs it more pain that this ye call A "great event" should come to pass From that? Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in or exceed!"

"Any nose May ravage with impunity a rose."

"Each a God's germ, but doomed remain a germ In unexpanded infancy"

"Deeds let escape are never to be done."

"Have they fancies — slow, perchance, Not at their beck, which indistinctly glance Until by song each floating part be linked To each, and all grow palpable, distinct? He pondered this."

"So men believe And worship what they know not, nor receive Delight from."

"[...]his back is fairly turned? The pair of goodly palaces are burned, The gardens ravaged, and your Guelf is drunk A week with joy ; the next, his laughter sunk In sobs of blood, for he found, some strange way, Old Salinguerra back again; I say Old Salinguerra in the town once more Uprooting, overturning, flame before Blood fetlock-high beneath him; Azzo fled; Who scaped the carnage followed; then the dead Were pushed aside from Salinguerra's throne. He ruled once more Ferrara, all alone. Till Azzo, stunned awhile, revived, would pounce; Coupled with Boniface, like lynx and ounce."

"The hill-cat boasts some cunning of her own, Some stealthy tricks to better beasts unknown That quick with prey enough her hunger blunts And feeds her fat while gaunt the lion hunts."

"over zealous in the feat And stumbling on a peril unaware. Was captive, "trammelled in his proper snare," They phrase it, "taken by his own intrigue""

"But, gathering in its ancient market-place, Talked group with restless group ; and not a face But wrath made livid, for among them were Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care To feast him. Fear had long since taken root In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit, The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way It worked while each grew drunk ! men grave and grey Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro. Letting the silent luxury trickle slow About the hollows where a heart should be; But the young gulped with a delirious glee Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood At the fierce news"

"Progress is The law of life: man is not Man as yet."

"I give the fight up: let there be an end, A privacy, an obscure nook for me. I want to be forgotten even by God."

"The peerless cup afloat Of the lake-lily is an urn some nymph Swims bearing high above her head."

"Jove strikes the Titans down Not when they set about their mountain-piling But when another rock would crown the work."

"Every joy is gain And gain is gain, however small."

"The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung To their first fault, and withered in their pride."

"Error has no end."

"Strange secrets are let out by Death Who blabs so oft the follies of this world."

"God is the perfect poet, Who in his person acts his own creations."

"Truth is within ourselves."

"I see my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive,—what time, what circuit first, I ask not; but unless God send his hail Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow, In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. In his good time."

"Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart."

"That we devote ourselves to God, is seen In living just as though no God there were."

"Autumn wins you best by this its mute Appeal to sympathy for its decay."

"Strive and thrive!"

"One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake."

"The moment eternal — just that and no more — When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips meet!"

"All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee: All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem: In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea: Breath and bloom, shade and shine, — wonder, wealth, and — how far above them —"

"A minute's success pays the failure of years."

"What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew."

"Never the time and the place And the loved one all together!"

"I find earth not gray but rosy; Heaven not grim but fair of hue. Do I stoop? I pluck a posy; Do I stand and stare? All's blue."

"Have you found your life distasteful? My life did and does smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I save and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I'll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun sets to rise again."