"The deeds we do, the words we say,— Into still air they seem to fleet, We count them ever past; But they shall last, In the dread judgment they And we shall meet!"

"Abide with me from morn till eve, For without Thee I cannot live: Abide with me when night is nigh, For without Thee I dare not die."

"Oft has it been my lot to mark A proud, conceited, talking spark."

"The trivial round, the common task, Would furnish all we ought to ask."

"Not what we wish, but what we want, Oh, let thy grace supply!"

"Oxford, from the strength of principles shown there, was becoming a rallying point for the whole kingdom. John Keble's assize sermon before the judges against the Latitudinarian government was thought indiscreet and fruitless. But these things were not so."

"Sprinkled along the waste of years Full many a soft green isle appears: Pause where we may along the desert road, Some shelter is in sight, some sacred safe abode."

"When he read, you saw that he felt, and he made you feel, that he was the ordained servant of God; delivering His words, or leading you, but as one of like infirmities and sins with your own, in your prayers. When he preached, it was with an affectionate almost plaintive earnestness, which was very moving."

"Another Cleland see in Lewis rise. Why sleep the ministers of truth and law? Has the state no controul, no decent awe, While each with each in madd'ning orgies vie Pandars to lust and licens'd blasphemy? Can senates hear without a kindred rage? Oh may a poet's lightning blast the page, Nor with the bolt of Nemesis in vain Supply the laws, that wake not to restrain!"

"The watchful mother tarries nigh Though sleep have closed her infant's eye, For should he wake, and find her gone, She knows she could not bear his moan."

"Sweet is the smile of home; the mutual look When hearts are of each other sure; Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook, The haunt of all affections pure."

"Give us grace to listen well."

"A secure place in this gallery of English worthies is held by John Keble, Victorian Vicar of the parish of Hursley near Winchester. His ministry was peaceful, dedicated and devout, the qualities which reappear in his poetry; and to his contemporaries, he was a worthy successor to Hooker and Herbert as well as the very model of the rural parish priest, the pastor and shepherd of his people. For pious Anglicans, his name still evokes that romantic ecclesiastical Arcadia and heaven on earth... This vision of Christianity was Keble's, one intrinsically rustic and English. There was more about him, however, than the peace and plenty of the rural parsonage. Keble was also a national figure as one of the best-loved of English poets and a leader of the High Church revival. To his own generation he was a prophet in Israel, and for many Victorians, the poet of the religious world."

"Hark! hark! – What mean those yells – those cries? His chain some furious madman breaks! He comes! I see his glaring eyes! Now! now! my dungeon bars he shakes. Help! Help! He's gone! Oh! fearful woe, Such screams to hear – such sights to see! My brain! my brain! – I know, I know I am not mad, but soon shall be."

"Much against his will, but for a great many persons of very various characters who but for him might have fallen under very different influences, he became a sort of religious "court of final appeal." When all else had been said and done, people would wait and see what came from Hursley, before they made up their minds as to the path of duty."

"'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose Friends out of sight, in faith to muse How grows in Paradise our store."

"His happy magic made the Anglican Church seem what Catholicism was and is."

"The true and primary author of it [the Oxford Movement], however, as is usual with great motive-powers, was out of sight. Having carried off as a mere boy the highest honours of the University, he had turned from the admiration which haunted his steps, and sought for a better and holier satisfaction in pastoral work in the country. Need I say that I am speaking of John Keble?"

"Sun-blistered ships on opal seas, Pacific stars split round the skies, What have I now to do with these Who know the wonder of your eyes?"

"At present I'm re-reading Traherne's Centuries of Meditations which I think almost the most beautiful book (in prose, I mean, excluding poets) in English."

"And elm-trees, massed like ostrich feather plumes, Are streaked and shot with fire."

"Had we not loved ourselves at all, we could never have been obliged to love anything. So that self-love is the basis of all love."

"Why is this soe long detaind in a dark manuscript, that if printed would be a Light to the World, & a Universal Blessing?"

"The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not man disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God."

"You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world."

"All appeared new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. My knowledge was Divine. I knew by intuition those things which since my Apostasy, I collected again by the highest reason."

"The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting."

"As nothing is more easy than to think, so nothing is more difficult than to think well."

"Strange is the vigour in a brave man's soul. The strength of his spirit and his irresistible power, the greatness of his heart and the height of his condition, his mighty confidence and contempt of danger, his true security and repose in himself, his liberty to dare and do what he pleaseth, his alacrity in the midst of fears, his invincible temper, are advantages which make him master of fortune."

"Order the beauty even of beauty is, It is the rule of bliss, The very life and form and cause of pleasure."

"Some unknown joys there be Laid up in store for me."

"An empty book is like an infant's soul, in which anything may be written. It is capable of all things, but containeth nothing."

"A stranger here Strange things doth meet, strange glories see; Strange treasures lodg'd in this fair world appear, Strange all and new to me; But that they mine should be who nothing was, That strangest is of all; yet brought to pass."

"The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and sparkling Angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! Boys and girls tumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die; But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places."

"By this you may see who are the rude and barbarous Indians: For verily there is no savage nation under the cope of Heaven, that is more absurdly barbarous than the Christian World. They that go naked and drink water and live upon roots are like Adam, or Angels in comparison of us."

"To think the world therefore a general Bedlam, or place of madmen, and oneself a physician, is the most necessary point of present wisdom."

"The better production of our generation has been mainly lyrical and it has been widely diffused."

"It did not last: the devil, shouting "Ho. Let Einstein be," restored the status quo."

"And I've swallowed, I grant, a beer of lot - But I'm not so think as you drunk I am."

"A pampered menial drove me from the door."

"Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span; Oh give relief, and Heaven will bless your store."

"God heard the embattled nations sing and shout "Gott strafe England" and "God save the King!" God this, God that, and God the other thing – "Good God!" said God, "I've got my work cut out!""

"Now there once was a lass, and a very pretty lass, And she was an isotope's daughter"

"At last incapable of further harm, The lewd forefathers of the village sleep."

"Even the British Arthur becomes an Englishman, a Germanic hero, brave, daring and open-handed. We are in a world of feasts and vaunting speeches, flytings and lusty battles, fierce deeds and bloody humour, with the Fiend, the Adversary of Man, always round the next corner."

"Betere is liste þene ufel strenðe. for mid liste me mai ihalden þat strengðe ne mai iwalden."

"And ich wulle uaren to Aualun to uairest alre maidene. to Argante þere quene aluen swiðe sceone. & heo scal mine wunden makien alle isunde. al hal me makien mid haleweiye drenchen. And seoðe ich cumen wulle. to mine kineriche. and wunien mid Brutten mid muchelere wunne."

"By reason of Arthur's position as its climax as well as of the long line of other traditional heroes, events and associations, and of its breadth of treatment, simplicity, intensity, enthusiasm, accord with the supernatural, vitality of imagination, elevation and sometimes nobility and religious feeling, the poem is the nearest thing we have to a traditional racial epic."