"For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment."

"On the mind of an adversary one never makes the faintest impression."

"The grand style arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject."

"Of these two literatures, as of the intellect of Europe in general, the main effort, for now many years, has been a critical effort; the endeavour, in all branches of knowledge — theology, philosophy, history, art, science — to see the object as in itself it really is."

"The translator of Homer should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author: — that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally, that he is eminently noble."

"What helps it now, that Byron bore, With haughty scorn which mock'd the smart, Through Europe to the Ætolian shore The pageant of his bleeding heart? That thousands counted every groan, And Europe made his woe her own?"

"But — if you cannot give us ease — Last of the race of them who grieve Here leave us to die out with these Last of the people who believe! Silent, while years engrave the brow; Silent — the best are silent now. Achilles ponders in his tent, The kings of modern thought are dumb, Silent they are though not content, And wait to see the future come. They have the grief men had of yore, But they contend and cry no more."

"Oh, hide me in your gloom profound, Ye solemn seats of holy pain! Take me, cowl'd forms, and fence me round, Till I possess my soul again; Till free my thoughts before me roll, Not chafed by hourly false control!"

"Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born, With nowhere yet to rest my head, Like these, on earth I wait forlorn."

"Forgive me, masters of the mind! At whose behest I long ago So much unlearnt, so much resign'd — I come not here to be your foe! I seek these anchorites, not in ruth, To curse and to deny your truth; Not as their friend, or child, I speak! But as, on some far northern strand, Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek In pity and mournful awe might stand Before some fallen Runic stone — For both were faiths, and both are gone."

"All are before me! I behold The House, the Brotherhood austere! — And what am I, that I am here? For rigorous teachers seized my youth, And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire, Show'd me the high, white star of Truth, There bade me gaze, and there aspire. Even now their whispers pierce the gloom: What dost thou in this living tomb?"

"But the majestic River floated on, Out of the mist and hum of that low land, Into the frosty starlight, and there mov’d, Rejoicing, through the hush’s Chorasmian waste, Under the solitary moon: he flow’d Right for the Polar Star, past Orgunjè, Brimming, and bright, and large: then sands begin To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many a league The shorn and parcell’d Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles — Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, A foil’d circuitous wanderer:—till at last The long’d-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bath’d stars Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea."

"So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead. And the great Rustum drew his horseman’s cloak Down o’er his face, and sate by his dead son. As those black granite pillars, once high-rear’d By Jemshid in Persepolis, to bear His house, now, mid their broken flights of steps, Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side — So in the sand lay Rustum by his son."

"And youth and bloom, and this delightful world."

"his head droop’d low, His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay—"

"... the salt blue sea."

"They follow’d me, my hope, my fame, my star."

"for like the lightning to this field I came, and like the wind I go away — Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind."

"Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine."

"And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts Hail’d; but the Tartars knew not who he was."

"And he saw that Youth, Of age and looks to be his own dear son, Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand, Like some rich hyacinth, which by the scythe Of an unskillful gardener has been cut, Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed, And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, On the mown, dying grass; — so Sohrab lay, Lovely in death, upon the common sand. And Rustum gazed on him with grief."

"and all the pleasant life they led, They three, in that long-distant summer-time — The castle and the dewy woods, and hunt And hound, and morn on those delightful hills In Ader-baijan."

"his own early youth, And all its bounding rapture"

"as the vast tide Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore At the full moon."

"No horse's cry was that, most like the roar Of some pain'd desert-lion, who all day Hath trail'd the hunter's javelin in his side, And comes at night to die upon the sand."

"For a cloud Grew suddenly in Heaven, and darked the sun."

"Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands! Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words!"

"Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul?"

"But often, in the world’s most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life; A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course; A longing to inquire Into the mystery of this heart which beats So wild, so deep in us, to know Whence our lives come and where they go."

"The horse, whom Rustum on a foray once Did in Bokhara by the river find A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home And reared him, a bright bay with lofty crest."

"But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool, Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow; Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves Slake their parched throats with sugar’d mulberries — In single file they move, and stop their breath, For fear they should dislodge the o’er hanging snows — So the pale Persians held their breath with fear."

"He has the wild stag’s foot, the lion’s heart."

"When the dew glistens on the pearlèd ears, A shiver runs through the deep corn for joy."

"long files of horse, they stream’d: As when, some grey November morn, the files, In marching order spread."

"and left His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay, And o’er his chilly limbs his woollen coat He pass’d."

"All night long I lie Tossing and wakeful, and I come."

"for it is not yet clear dawn. Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?"

"He slept light, an old man's sleep."

"and now The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa’s tent."

"And the first grey of morning fill’d the east, And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream. But all the Tartar camp along the stream Was hush’d, and still the men were plunged in sleep."

"Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade, With a free, onward impulse brushing through, By night, the silver’d branches of the glade."

"O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; Before this strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims, Its heads o’ertax’d, its palsied hearts, was rife — Fly hence, our contact fear!"

"And amongst us one, Who most has suffer’d, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne."

"Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, Light half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will’d, Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill’d; For whom each year we see Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day — Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?"

"The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall."

"Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither'd spray, And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall."

"Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, Returning home on summer-nights, have met Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe, Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, As the punt’s rope chops round."

"Tired of knocking at preferment's door."

"All the live murmur of a summer's day."

"Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill."