"Far, far from here, The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay Among the green Illyrian hills; ... And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes, Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia, Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-shore, In breathless quiet, after all their ills."

"Is it so small a thing To have enjoy’d the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanc’d true friends, and beat down baffling foes?"

"So, loath to suffer mute. We, peopling the void air, Make Gods to whom to impute The ills we ought to bear."

"Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away."

"We do not what we ought, What we ought not, we do, And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through; But our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier powers."

"Thou hast no right to bliss."

"The sophist sneers: Fool, take Thy pleasure, right or wrong! The pious wail: Forsake A world these sophists throng! Be neither saint- nor sophist-led, but be a man."

"Hither and thither spins The wind-borne mirroring soul, A thousand glimpses wins, And never sees a whole."

"Time may restore us in his course Goethe’s sage mind and Byron’s force; But where will Europe’s latter hour Again find Wordsworth’s healing power?"

"He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. He laid us as we lay at birth On the cool flowery lap of earth."

"Wordsworth has gone from us — and ye, Ah, may ye feel his voice as we! He too upon a wintry clime Had fallen — on this iron time Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears."

"Physician of the Iron Age, Goethe has done his pilgrimage. He took the suffering human race, He read each wound, each weakness clear — And struck his finger on the place, And said — Thou ailest here, and here."

"Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron’s struggle cease."

"Not milder is the general lot Because our spirits have forgot, In action’s dizzying eddy whirl’d, The something that infects the world."

"Yet they, believe me, who await No gifts from Chance, have conquer’d Fate."

"The World in which we live and move Outlasts aversion, outlasts love: Outlasts each effort, interest, hope, Remorse, grief, joy."

"No deep the Poet sees, but wide."

"Fate gave, what Chance shall not control, His sad lucidity of soul."

"She will start from her slumber When gusts shake the door: She will hear the winds howling, Will hear the waves roar. We shall see, while above us The waves roar and whirl, A ceiling of amber, A pavement of pearl. Singing, "Here came a mortal, But faithless was she: And alone dwell for ever The kings of the sea.""

"But, ah! she gave me never a look, For her eyes were sealed to the holy book. Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. Come away, children, call no more! Come away, come down, call no more!"

"Children dear, was it yesterday? Children dear, were we long alone? "The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say."

"Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away?"

"Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye. When did music come this way? Children dear, was it yesterday?"

"Where the spent lights quiver and gleam; Where the salt weed sways in the stream; Where the sea-beasts rang’d all round Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground."

"Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep."

"Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below. Now my brothers call from the bay; Now the great winds shoreward blow; Now the salt tides seaward flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. Children dear, let us away. This way, this way!"

"France, fam'd in all great arts, in none supreme."

"Ere the parting kiss be dry, Quick, thy tablets, Memory!"

"Ennobling this dull pomp, the life of kings, By contemplation of diviner things."

"The will is free; Strong is the soul, and wise, and beautiful; The seeds of god-like power are in us still; Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will!"

"And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, Didst tread on earth unguess'd at. — Better so! All pains the immortal spirit must endure, All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, Find their sole speech in that victorious brow."

"Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge."

"Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, And in that more lie all his hopes of good."

"Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole: The mellow glory of the Attic stage."

"But be his My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul, From first youth tested up to extreme old age, Business could not make dull, nor passion wild; Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole."

"Who prop, thou ask'st in these bad days, my mind? He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men, Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen, And Tmolus hill, and Smyrna bay, though blind."

"Such a price The Gods exact for song; To become what we sing."

"If one were searching for the best means to efface and kill in a whole nation the discipline of self-respect, the feeling for what is elevated, he could do no better than take the American newspapers."

"What really dissatisfies in American civilisation is the want of the interesting, a want due chiefly to the want of those two great elements of the interesting, which are elevation and beauty."

"That which in England we call the middle class is in America virtually the nation."

"English civilization — the humanizing, the bringing into one harmonious and truly humane life, of the whole body of English society — that is what interests me."

"Eutrapelia. "A happy and gracious flexibility," Pericles calls this quality of the Athenians...lucidity of thought, clearness and propriety of language, freedom from prejudice and freedom from stiffness, openness of mind, amiability of manners."

"For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry."

"Inequality has the natural and necessary effect, under the present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class."

"Choose equality."

"The free-thinking of one age is the common sense of the next."