"Ah, yet would God this flesh of mine might be Where air might wash and long leaves cover me; Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers, Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea."

"Wilt thou fear that, and fear not my desire?"

"For words divide and rend; But silence is most noble till the end."

"His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep."

"His speech is a burning fire."

"Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran, Pleasure with pain for leaven, Summer with flowers that fell, Remembrance fallen from heaven, And Madness risen from hell, Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death."

"And soft as lips that laugh and hide The laughing leaves of the tree divide, And screen from seeing and leave in sight The god pursuing, the maiden hid."

"For winter’s rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins."

"When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, The tongueless vigil and all the pain."

"Maiden, and mistress of the months and stars Now folded in the flowerless fields of heaven."

"God by God flits past in thunder, till His glories turn to shades; God to God bears wondering witness how His gospel flames and fades. More was each of these, yet they were, than man their servant seemed: Dead are all of these, and man survives who made them while he dreamed."

"I can truly say with Shelley that I have been fortunate in friendships: that I have been no less fortunate in my enemies than in my friends."

"There was a bad poet named Clough, Whom his friends all united to puff. But the public, though dull, Has not quite such a skull As belongs to believers in Clough."

"Sweet Love, that art so bitter."

"The small dark body's Lesbian loveliness That held the fire eternal."

"Rhyme is the native condition of lyric verse in English; a rhymeless lyric is a maimed thing."

"And lo, between the sundawn and the sun His day's work and his night's work are undone: And lo, between the nightfall and the light, He is not, and none knoweth of such an one."

"Dream that the lips once breathless Might quicken if they would; Say that the soul is deathless; Dream that the gods are good; Say March may wed September, And time divorce regret; But not that you remember, And not that I forget."

"Time found our tired love sleeping, And kissed away his breath; But what should we do weeping, Though light love sleep to death? We have drained his lips at leisure, Till there's not left to drain A single sob of pleasure, A single pulse of pain."

"Forget that I remember And dream that I forget."

"I shall remember while the light lives yet And in the night time I shall not forget."

"She hath wasted with fire thine high places, She hath hidden and marred and made sad The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces Of gods that were goodly and glad. She slays, and her hands are not bloody; She moves as a moon in the wane, White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy, Our Lady of Pain."

"For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose’s, And love is more cruel than lust. Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives"

"Despair the twin-born of devotion."

"Ah beautiful passionate body That never has ached with a heart!"

"O splendid and sterile Dolores, Our Lady of Pain."

"Change in a trice The lilies and languors of virtue For the raptures and roses of vice."

"We shift and bedeck and bedrape us, Thou art noble and nude and antique."

"If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather, Blown fields or flowerful closes, Green pasture or grey grief; If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf."

"For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span; A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man. So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep. For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep."

"Though these that were Gods are dead, and thou being dead art a God, Though before thee the throned Cytherean be fallen, and hidden her head, Yet thy kingdom shall pass, Galilean, thy dead shall go down to thee dead."

"Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death."

"Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold, A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold?"

"Ah, ah, thy beauty! like a beast it bites, Stings like an adder, like an arrow smites."

"Superflux of pain."

"John Gilpin was a citizen Of credit and renown, A train-band captain eke was he, Of famous London town."

"How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light."

"But the sound of the church-going bell These valleys and rocks never heard; Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell, Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd."

"There is mercy in every place, And mercy, encouraging thought! Gives even affliction a grace And reconciles man to his lot."

"My friends, do they now and then send A wish or a thought after me? O tell me I yet have a friend, Though a friend I am never to see."

"Religion! what treasure untold Resides in that heavenly word!"

"Society friendship and love Divinely bestow'd upon man, O had I the wings of a dove How soon I would taste you again!"

"I am out of humanity's reach. I must finish my journey alone, Never hear the sweet music of speech; I start at the sound of my own."

"O solitude! where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms Than reign in this horrible place."

"I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute; From the center all round to the sea I am lord of the fowl and the brute."

"I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd — How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat Whom I may whisper — solitude is sweet."

"Till authors hear at length, one general cry, Tickle and entertain us, or we die!The loud demand from year to year the same, Beggars invention and makes fancy lame."

"Philologists, who chase A panting syllable through time and space, Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark, To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark."

"Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn."

"An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless when it goes as when it stands."