"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more."

"There sinks the nebulous star we call the sun."

"The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying."

"O Love! they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying! And answer, echoes, answer! dying, dying, dying."

"Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying! Blow, bugle! answer, echoes! dying, dying, dying."

"Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea! Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps."

"And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time Sparkle for ever."

"As thro' the land at eve we went, And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, We fell out, my wife and I, O we fell out I know not why, And kiss'd again with tears."

"A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she."

"And one said smiling 'Pretty were the sight If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair."

"God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled — Some sense of duty, something of a faith, Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made. Some patient force to change them when we will, Some civic manhood firm against the crowd."

"Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him; and tho’ he trip and fall, He shall not blind his soul with clay."

"Like perfect music unto noble words."

"Sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees."

"Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me."

"Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me."

"Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd: I strove against the stream and all in vain: Let the great river take me to the main: No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more."

"You wrong yourselves — the woman is so hard Upon the woman."

"Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry: All her maidens, watching, said, "She must weep or she will die.""

"Man for the field and woman for the hearth: Man for the sword and for the needle she: Man with the head and woman with the heart: Man to command and woman to obey; All else confusion."

"Man is the hunter; woman is his game: The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, We hunt them for the beauty of their skins; They love us for it, and we ride them down."

"O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee."

"Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunderstorm;Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law."

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, And the individual withers, and the world is more and more."

"Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine —"

"There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing-space; I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race."

"Mated with a squalid savage — what to me were sun or clime? I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time —"

"Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range. Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change."

"Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."

"Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go."

"So I triumphed ere my passion sweeping through me left me dry, Left with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye; Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint: Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point: Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion creeping nigher, Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire. Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns."

"Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn: Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn."

"In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."

"Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight."

"He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse."

"Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home."

"I remember one that perish'd: sweetly did she speak and move: Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love."

"Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."

"Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall."

"O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart."

"What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys. Every gate is thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow. I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, When the ranks are rolled in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound. But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels."

"Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life; Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field"

"It is sinful to even see the face of a man who does not feel his friend's pain. Treat your own mountain-like pain as though it were a speck. Treat your friend's speck-like pain as though it were a mountain."

"(...) Pan Tadeusz gradually won recognition as the highest achievement in all Polish literature for having transformed into poetry what seemed by its very nature to resist any such attempt. In it, Mickiewicz's whole literary training culminates in an effortless conciseness where every word finds its proper place as if predestined throughout the many centuries of the history of the Polish language."

"Pour les Polonais, Pan Tadeusz est le grand poème héroï-comique de leur histoire : c'est leur Cid, leur Légende des siècles et leurs Trois Mousquetaires à la fois."

"In Pan Tadeusz Poland possesses the only successful epic our century has produced."

"No European nation of our day has such an epic as Pan Tadeusz. In it Don Quixote has been fused with the Iliad. The poet stood on the border line between a vanishing generation and our own. Before they died, he had seen them; but now they are no more. That is precisely the epic point of view. Mickiewicz has performed his task with a master's hand; he has made immortal a dead generation, which now will never pass away. (...) Pan Tadeusz is a true epic. No more can be said or need be said."

"The sun had gone already behind the gardens and the forest of Panama, and was going slowly beyond the isthmus to the other ocean; but the Atlantic was full of light yet; in the open air there was still perfect vision; therefore, he read further: "Now bear my longing soul to those forest slopes, to those green meadows." At last the dusk obliterates the letters on the white paper,—the dusk short as a twinkle. The old man rested his head on the rock, and closed his eyes. Then "She who defends bright Częstochowa" took his soul, and transported it to "those fields colored by various grain." On the sky were burning yet those long stripes, red and golden, and on those brightnesses he was flying to beloved regions. The pine-woods were sounding in his ears; the streams of his native place were murmuring. He saw everything as it was; everything asked him, "Dost remember?" He remembers!"

"O, gdybym kiedy dożył tej pociechy, Żeby te księgi zbłądziły pod strzechy"