"In the dark womb where I began My mother's life made me a man. Through all the months of human birth Her beauty fed my common earth. I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, But through the death of some of her."

"My blood did leap, my flesh did revel, Saul Kane was tokened to the devil."

"Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French, And some’ll swallow tay and stuff fit only for a wench; But I’m for right Jamaica till I roll beneath the bench, Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan."

"Will you not come home, brother? you have been long away, It's April, and blossom time, and white is the spray; And bright is the sun, brother, and warm is the rain, - Will you not come home, brother, home to us again?"

"Write poetry for its own sake — not in a spirit of emulation, and not with a view to celebrity; the less you aim at that the more likely you will be to deserve and finally to obtain it."

"He passed a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility; And he owned with a grin That his favorite sin Is pride that apes humility."

"It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills, And April's in the west wind, and daffodils."

"I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking."

"I have seen flowers come in stony places And kind things done by men with ugly faces, And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races, So I trust, too."

"A considerable stir was being made (1795) by two youthful advocates of revolution, who were trying to rouse the people of Bristol. These two young men who protested boldly against the war, the ministry and the established church and social order were Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Colerige."

"You are old, Father William." the young man cried, "The few locks which are left you are grey; You are hale, Father William—a hearty old man: Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"How, then, was the Devil dressed? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best; His coat was red, and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where his tail came through."

"Cold is thy heart and as frozen as Charity!"

"If you would be pungent, be brief ; for it is with words as with sunbeams—the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn."

"In my days of youth, I remembered my God, And he hath not forgotten my age."

"It was a summer evening, Old Kaspar's work was done, And he before his cottage door Was sitting in the sun, And by him sported on the green His little grandchild Wilhelmine."

"'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he, "Who fell in the great victory."

"But what they fought each other for I could not well make out."

"Thou hast confessions to listen, And bells to christen, And altars and dolls to dress; And fools to coax, And sinners to hoax, And beads and bones to bless; And great pardons to sell For those who pay well, And small ones for those who pay less."

"At this good news, so great The Devil's pleasure grew, That, with a joyful swish, he rent The hole where his tail came through."

"How beautiful is night! A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures; nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, Breaks the serene of heaven: In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine Rolls through the dark blue depths; Beneath her steady ray The desert circle spreads Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. How beautiful is night!"

"And then they knew the perilous Rock, And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

"Will ye believe The wonders of the ocean? how its shoals Sprang from the wave, like flashing light; .. took wing, And, twinkling with a silver glitterance, Flew through the air and sunshine? yet were they To sight less wondrous than the tribe who swam, Following like fowlers, with uplifted eye, Their falling quarry: .. language cannot paint Their splendid tints! though in blue ocean seen, Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue, In all its rich variety of shades, Suffus'd with glowing gold."

"What will not woman, gentle woman dare, When strong affection stirs her spirit up?"

"Where Washington hath left His awful memory A light for after times!"

"The laws are with us, and God on our side."

"They sin who tell us love can die; With life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity. . . . . . Love is indestructible, Its holy flame forever burneth; From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. . . . . . It soweth here with toil and care, But the harvest-time of love is there."

"Oh, when a mother meets on high The babe she lost in infancy, Hath she not then for pains and fears, The day of woe, the watchful night, For all her sorrow, all her tears, An over-payment of delight?"

"Agreed to differ."

"The Satanic school."

"The march of intellect."

"How does the water Come down at Lodore?"

"From its fountains In the mountains, Its rills and its gills; Through moss and through brake, It runs and it creeps For a while, till it sleeps In its own little lake."

"We milk the cow of the world, and as we do We whisper in her ear, "You are not true.""

"Hebetude. It is a graph of a theme that flings The dancer kneeling on nothing into the wings, And Nijinsky hadn't the words to make the laws For learning to loiter in air; he merely said, "I merely leap and pause.""

"Try to remember this: what you project Is what you will perceive; what you perceive With any passion, be it love or terror, May take on whims and powers of its own. Therefore a numb and grudging circumspection Will serve you best — unless you overdo it, Watching your step too narrowly, refusing To specify a world, shrinking your purview To a tight vision of your inching shoes, Which may, as soon as you come to think, be crossing An unseen gorge upon a rotten trestle."

"What you hope for Is that at some point of the pointless journey, Indoors or out, and when you least expect it, Right in the middle of your stride, like that, So neatly that you never feel a thing, The kind assassin Sleep will draw a bead And blow your brains out."

"What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you."

"In each art the difficulty of the form is a substitution for the difficulty of direct apprehension and expression of the object. The first difficulty may be more or less overcome, but the second is insuperable; thus every poem begins, or ought to, by a disorderly retreat to defensible positions. Or, rather, by a perception of the hopelessness of direct combat, and a resort to the warfare of spells, effigies, and prophecies. The relation between the artist and reality is an oblique one, and indeed there is no good art which is not consciously oblique. If you respect the reality of the world, you know that you can approach that reality only by indirect means."

"I started in to cry and call his name, Asking forgiveness of his tongueless head. ... I dreamt the past was never past redeeming: But whether this was false or honest dreaming I beg death's pardon now. And mourn the dead."

"Well, I was ten and very much afraid. In my kind world the dead were out of range And I could not forgive the sad or strange In beast or man."

"My dog lay dead five days without a grave In the thick of summer, hid in a clump of pine And a jungle of grass and honey-suckle vine. I who had loved him while he kept alive Went only close enough to where he was To sniff the heavy honeysuckle-smell Twined with another odor heavier still And hear the flies' intolerable buzz."

"Last night I saw the grass Slowly divide (it was the same scene But now it glowed a fierce and mortal green) And saw the dog emerging."

"The soul descends once more in bitter love To accept the waking body"

"The soul shrinks From all that it is about to remember, From the punctual rape of every blessed day, And cries, "Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry, Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.""

"The tall camels of the spirit Steer for their deserts, passing the last groves loud With the sawmill shrill of the locust, to the whole honey of the arid Sun. They are slow, proud, And move with a stilted stride To the land of sheer horizon..."

"The eyes open to a cry of pulleys, And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple As false dawn. Outside the open window The morning air is all awash with angels."

"The beacon-blaze unsheathing turns The face of darkness pale And now with one grand chop gives clearance to Our human visions . . ."