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My Passions Are All Asleep From My Having Slumbered Till Nearly Eleven And Weakened The Animal Fiber All Over Me To A Delightful Sensation About Three Degrees On This Sight Of Faintness - If I Had Teeth Of Pearl And The Breath Of Lilies I Should Call It Languor - But As I Am I Must Call It Laziness. In This State Of Effeminacy The Fibers Of The Brain Are Relaxed In Common With The Rest Of The Body, And To Such A Happy Degree That Pleasure Has No Show Of Enticement And Pain No Unbearable Frown. Neither Poetry, Nor Ambition, Nor Love Have Any Alertness Of Countenance As They Pass By Me.

-John Keats

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My Passions Are All

John Keats

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My Passions Are All Asleep From My Having Slumbered Till Nearly Eleven And Weakened The Animal Fiber All Over Me To A Delightful Sensation About Three Degrees On This Sight Of Faintness - If I Had Teeth Of Pearl And The Breath Of Lilies I Should Call It Languor - But As I Am I Must Call It Laziness. In This State Of Effeminacy The Fibers Of The Brain Are Relaxed In Common With The Rest Of The Body, And To Such A Happy Degree That Pleasure Has No Show Of Enticement And Pain No Unbearable Frown. Neither Poetry, Nor Ambition, Nor Love Have Any Alertness Of Countenance As They Pass By Me.

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I Saw Pale Kings And Princes Too, Pale Warriors, Death-pale Were They All; They Cried- "la Belle Dame Sans Merci Hath Thee In Thrall!

The Imagination May Be Compared To Adam's Dream-he Awoke And Found It Truth.

Thou Art A Dreaming Thing, A Fever Of Thyself.

What Occasions The Greater Part Of The World's Quarrels? Simply This: Two Minds Meet And Do Not Understand Each Other In Time Enough To Prevent Any Shock Of Surprise At The Conduct Of Either Party.

For Axioms In Philosophy Are Not Axioms Until They Are Proved Upon Our Pulses.

Load Every Rift With Ore.

It Keeps Eternal Whisperings Around Desolate Shores

There Is A Budding Morrow In Midnight.

Why Employ Intelligent And Highly Paid Ambassadors And Then Go And Do Their Work For Them? You Don't Buy A Canary And Sing Yourself.

Real Are The Dreams Of Gods, And Smoothly Pass Their Pleasures In A Long Immortal Dream.

Philosophy Will Clip An Angel's Wings, Conquer All Mysteries By Rule And Line, Empty The Haunted Air, And Gnomed Mine - Unweave A Rainbow.

Wine Is Only Sweet To Happy Men.

Health Is My Expected Heaven.

Thou Foster-child Of Silence And Slow Time.

Foster Children

I Had A Dove And The Sweet Dove Died; And I Have Thought It Died Of Grieving: O, What Could It Grieve For? Its Feet Were Tied, With A Silken Thread Of My Own Hands' Weaving.

A Moment's Thought Is Passion's Passing Knell.

A Man Should Have The Fine Point Of His Soul Taken Off To Become Fit For This World.

For Poesy Alone Can Tell Her Dreams, With The Fine Spell Of Words Alone Can Save Imagination From The Sable Charm And Dumb Enchantment. Who Alive Can Say, ‘thou Art No Poet May’st Not Tell Thy Dreams?’ Since Every Man Whose Soul Is Not A Clod Hath Visions, And Would Speak, If He Had Loved And Been Well Nurtured In His Mother Tongue. Whether The Dream Now Purpos’d To Rehearse Be Poet’s Or Fanatic’s Will Be Known When This Warm Scribe My Hand Is In The Grave.

Wherein Lies Happiness? In That Which Becks Our Ready Minds To Fellowship Divine, A Fellowship With Essence; Till We Shine, Full Alchemiz’d, And Free Of Space. Behold The Clear Religion Of Heaven!

Music's Golden Tongue Flatter'd To Tears This Aged Man And Poor.

Let Us Open Our Leaves Like A Flower, And Be Passive And Receptive.

Season Of Mists And Mellow Fruitfulness, Close Bosom-friend Of The Maturing Sun.

The Air Is All Softness.

A Poet Is The Most Unpoetical Of Anything In Existence; Because He Has No Identity He Is Continually Informing And Filling Some Other Body.

My Chest Of Books Divide Amongst My Friends.

The Public - A Thing I Cannot Help Looking Upon As An Enemy, And Which I Cannot Address Without Feelings Of Hostility.

The Imagination Of A Boy Is Healthy, And The Mature Imagination Of A Man Is Healthy; But There Is A Space Of Life Between, In Which The Soul Is In A Ferment, The Character Undecided, The Way Of Life Uncertain, The Ambition Thick-sighted: Thence Proceeds Mawkishness.

Nothing Ever Becomes Real Till It Is Experienced.

I Have Loved The Principle Of Beauty In All Things.

I Will Clamber Through The Clouds And Exist.

I Will Imagine You Venus Tonight And Pray, Pray, Pray To Your Star Like A Heathen.

She Hurried At His Words, Beset With Fears, For There Were Sleeping Dragons All Around.

O For The Gentleness Of Old Romance, The Simple Planning Of A Minstrel's Song!

I Should Write For The Mere Yearning And Fondness I Have For The Beautiful, Even If My Night's Labors Should Be Burnt Every Morning And No Eye Shine Upon Them.

A Thing Of Beauty Is A Joy For Ever: Its Loveliness Increases; It Will Never Pass Into Nothingness; But Still Will Keep A Bower Quiet For Us, And A Sleep Full Of Sweet Dreams, And Health, And Quiet Breathing.

I Came To Feel How Far Above All Fancy, Pride, And Fickle Maidenhood, All Earthly Pleasure, All Imagined Good, Was The Warm Tremble Of A Devout Kiss.

I Am In That Temper That If I Were Under Water I Would Scarcely Kick To Come To The Top.

There Is Nothing Stable In The World; Uproar's Your Only Music.

His Old Right Hand Lay Nerveless, Listless, Dead, Unsceptred; And His Realmless Eyes Were Closed.

Sweet Are The Pleasures That To Verse Belong, And Doubly Sweet A Brotherhood In Song.

Every Fresh Experience Points Out Some Form Of Error Which We Shall Afterwards Carefully Avoid.

We Have Woven A Web, You And I, Attached To This World But A Separate World Of Our Own Invention.

I Stood Tip-toe Upon A Little Hill, The Air Was Cooling, And So Very Still, That The Sweet Buds Which With A Modest Pride Pull Droopingly, In Slanting Curve Aside, Their Scantly Leaved, And Finely Tapering Stems, Had Not Yet Lost Those Starry Diadems Caught From The Early Sobbing Of The Morn.

Through Buried Paths, Where Sleepy Twilight Dreams The Summer Time Away.

Do You Not See How Necessary A World Of Pains And Troubles Is To School An Intelligence And Make It A Soul?

Already With Thee! Tender Is The Night. . . But Here There Is No Light. . .

Tender Is The Night

I Don't Need The Stars In The Night I Found My Treasure All I Need Is You By My Side So Shine Forever

My Passions Are All Asleep From My Having Slumbered Till Nearly Eleven And Weakened The Animal Fiber All Over Me To A Delightful Sensation About Three Degrees On This Sight Of Faintness - If I Had Teeth Of Pearl And The Breath Of Lilies I Should Call It Languor - But As I Am I Must Call It Laziness. In This State Of Effeminacy The Fibers Of The Brain Are Relaxed In Common With The Rest Of The Body, And To Such A Happy Degree That Pleasure Has No Show Of Enticement And Pain No Unbearable Frown. Neither Poetry, Nor Ambition, Nor Love Have Any Alertness Of Countenance As They Pass By Me.

She Press'd His Hand In Slumber; So Once More He Could Not Help But Kiss Her And Adore.

There's A Blush For Won't, And A Blush For Shan't, And A Blush For Having Done It: There's A Blush For Thought And A Blush For Naught, And A Blush For Just Begun It.

The Opinion I Have Of The Generality Of Women--who Appear To Me As Children To Whom I Would Rather Give A Sugar Plum Than My Time, Forms A Barrier Against Matrimony Which I Rejoice In.

No One Can Usurp The Heights... But Those To Whom The Miseries Of The World Are Misery, And Will Not Let Them Rest.

A Poem Needs Understanding Through The Senses. The Point Of Diving In A Lake Is Not Immediately To Swim To The Shore; It’s To Be In The Lake, To Luxuriate In The Sensation Of Water. You Do Not Work The Lake Out. It Is An Experience Beyond Thought. Poetry Soothes And Emboldens The Soul To Accept Mystery.

This Living Hand, Now Warm And Capable Of Earnest Grasping, Would, If It Were Cold And In The Icy Silence Of The Tomb, So Haunt Thy Days And Chill Thy Dreaming Nights That Thou Would Wish Thine Own Heart Dry Of Blood, So In My Veins Red Life Might Stream Again, And Thou Be Conscience-calm'd. See, Here It Is-- I Hold It Towards You.

Talking Of Pleasure, This Moment I Was Writing With One Hand, And With The Other Holding To My Mouth A Nectarine - How Good How Fine. It Went Down All Pulpy, Slushy, Oozy, All Its Delicious Embonpoint Melted Down My Throat Like A Large, Beatified Strawberry.

The Only Means Of Strengthening One's Intellect Is To Make Up One's Mind About Nothing, To Let The Mind Be A Thoroughfare For All Thoughts.

We Must Repeat The Often Repeated Saying, That It Is Unworthy A Religious Man To View An Irreligious One Either With Alarm Or Aversion, Or With Any Other Feeling Than Regret And Hope And Brotherly Commiseration.

... Who Alive Can Say 'thou Art No Poet - Mayst Not Tell Thy Dreams'? Since Every Man Whose Soul Is Not A Clod Hath Visions, And Would Speak, If He Had Loved, And Been Well Nurtured In His Mother Tongue.

Ghosts Of Melodious Prophesyings Rave Round Every Spot Where Trod Apollo's Foot; Bronze Clarions Awake, And Faintly Bruit, Where Long Ago A Giant Battle Was; And, From The Turf, A Lullaby Doth Pass In Every Place Where Infant Orpheus Slept. Feel We These Things? - That Moment Have We Stept Into A Sort Of Oneness, And Our State Is Like A Floating Spirit's. But There Are Richer Entanglements, Enthralments Far More Self-destroying, Leading, By Degrees, To The Chief Intensity: The Crown Of These Is Made Of Love And Friendship, And Sits High Upon The Forehead Of Humanity.

Or Thou Might'st Better Listen To The Wind, Whose Language Is To Thee A Barren Noise, Though It Blows Legend-laden Through The Trees.

All Clean And Comfortable I Sit Down To Write.

You Are Always New. The Last Of Your Kisses Was Ever The Sweetest; The Last Smile The Brightest; The Last Movement The Gracefullest. When You Pass'd My Window Home Yesterday, I Was Fill'd With As Much Admiration As If I Had Then Seen You For The First Time...even If You Did Not Love Me I Could Not Help An Entire Devotion To You.

Was It A Vision Or A Waking Dream? Fled Is That Music--do I Wake Or Sleep?

To Sorrow I Bade Good-morrow, And Thought To Leave Her Far Away Behind; But Cheerly, Cheerly, She Loves Me Dearly: She Is So Constant To Me, And So Kind.

O Solitude! If I Must With Thee Dwell, Let It Not Be Among The Jumbled Heap Of Murky Buildings

With A Great Poet The Sense Of Beauty Overcomes Every Other Consideration, Or Rather Obliterates All Consideration.

I Love Your Hills And I Love Your Dales, And I Love Your Flocks A-bleating; But Oh, On The Heather To Lie Together, With Both Our Hearts A-beating!

Works Of Genius Are The First Things In The World.

The Genius Of Poetry Must Work Out Its Own Salvation In A Man; It Cannot Be Matured By Law And Precept, But By Sensation And Watchfulness In Itself. That Which Is Creative Must Create Itself - In Endymion, I Leaped Headlong Into The Sea, And Thereby Have Become Better Acquainted With The Soundings, The Quicksands, And The Rocks, Than If I Had Stayed Upon The Green Shore, And Piped A Silly Pipe, And Took Tea And Comfortable Sdvice.

I Would Jump Down Etna For Any Public Good - But I Hate A Mawkish Popularity.

Dancing Music, Music Sad, Both Together, Sane And Mad.

Who Would Wish To Be Among The Commonplace Crowd Of The Little Famous - Who Are Each Individually Lost In A Throng Made Up Of Themselves?

Of Love, That Fairest Joys Give Most Unrest.

I Am Sailing With Thee Through The Dizzy Sky! How Beautiful Thou Art!

I Have Good Reason To Be Content, For Thank God I Can Read And Perhaps Understand Shakespeare To His Depths.

I Think I Shall Be Among The English Poets After My Death.

... The Open Sky Sits Upon Our Senses Like A Sapphire Crown - The Air Is Our Robe Of State - The Earth Is Our Throne, And The Sea A Mighty Minstrel Playing Before It.

Should Disappointment, Parent Of Despair, Strive For Her Son To Seize My Careless Heart; When, Like A Cloud, He Sits Upon The Air, Preparing On His Spell-bound Prey To Dart: Chase Him Away, Sweet Hope, With Visage Bright, And Fright Him As The Morning Frightens Night!

I Have So Much Of You In My Heart.

And Shade The Violets, That They May Bind The Moss In Leafy Nets.

Young Playmates Of The Rose And Daffodil, Be Careful Ere Ye Enter In, To Fill Your Baskets High With Fennel Green, And Balm, And Golden Pines Savory Latter-mint, And Columbines.

Where Soil Is, Men Grow, Whether To Weeds Or Flowers.

The Feel Of Not To Feel It, When There Is None To Heal It Nor Numbed Sense To Steel It.

When The Melancholy Fit Shall Fall Sudden From Heaven Like A Weeping Cloud, That Fosters The Droop-headed Flowers All, And Hides The Green Hill In An April Shroud; Then Glut Thy Sorrow On A Morning Rose.

I Almost Wish We Were Butterflies And Liv'd But Three Summer Days - Three Such Days With You I Could Fill With More Delight Than Fifty Common Years Could Ever Contain.

O For A Life Of Sensations Rather Than Of Thoughts!

We Hate Poetry That Has A Palpable Design Upon Us - And If We Do Not Agree, Seems To Put Its Hand In Its Breeches Pocket. Poetry Should Be Great & Unobtrusive, A Thing Which Enters Into One's Soul, And Does Not Startle It Or Amaze It With Itself But With Its Subject. - How Beautiful Are The Retired Flowers! How Would They Lose Their Beauty Were They To Throng Into The Highway Crying Out, "admire Me I Am A Violet! Dote Upon Me I Am A Primrose!"

Give Me Books, Fruit, French Wine And Fine Weather And A Little Music Out Of Doors, Played By Someone I Do Not Know. I Admire Lolling On A Lawn By A Water-lilied Pond To Eat White Currants And See Goldfish: And Go To The Fair In The Evening If I'm Good. There Is Not Hope For That -one Is Sure To Get Into Some Mess Before Evening.

No, No, I'm Sure, My Restless Spirit Never Could Endure To Brood So Long Upon One Luxury, Unless It Did, Though Fearfully, Espy A Hope Beyond The Shadow Of A Dream.

...yes, In Spite Of All, Some Shape Of Beauty Moves Away The Pall From Out Dark Spirits.

When Old Age Shall This Generation Waste, Thou Shalt Remain, In Midst Of Other Woe Than Ours, A Friend To Man, To Whom Thou Say'st, "beauty Is Truth, Truth Beauty," - That Is All Ye Know On Earth, And All Ye Need To Know.

This Generation

I Could Be Martyred For My Religion. Love Is My Religion And I Could Die For That. I Could Die For You.

'tis The Witching Hour Of Night, Orbed Is The Moon And Bright. And The Stars They Glisten, Glisten, Seeming With Bright Eyes To Listen- For What Listen They?

Pensive They Sit, And Roll Their Languid Eyes.

There Is Not A Fiercer Hell Than The Failure In A Great Object.

It Is A Flaw In Happiness To See Beyond Our Bourn, - It Forces Us In Summer Skies To Mourn, It Spoils The Singing Of The Nightingale.

Health Is The Greatest Of Blessings - With Health And Hope We Should Be Content To Live.

As The Swiss Inscription Says: Sprechen Ist Silbern, Schweigen Ist Golden,- "speech Is Silvern, Silence Is Golden;" Or, As I Might Rather Express It, Speech Is Of Time, Silence Is Of Eternity.

Beauty Is Truth, Truth Beauty,-that Is All Ye Know On Earth, And All Ye Need To Know.

Is There Another Life? Shall I Awake And Find All This A Dream? There Must Be We Cannot Be Created For This Sort Of Suffering.

I Must Choose Between Despair And Energy──i Choose The Latter.

The Days Of Peace And Slumberous Calm Are Fled.

You Are Always New. The Last Of Your Kisses Was Even The Sweetest; The Last Smile The Brightest; The Last Movement The Gracefullest.

When It Is Moving On Luxurious Wings, The Soul Is Lost In Pleasant Smotherings.

My Imagination Is A Monastery And I Am Its Monk.

O Aching Time! O Moments Big As Years!

There Is An Electric Fire In Human Nature Tending To Purify - So That Among These Human Creatures There Is Continually Some Birth Of New Heroism. The Pity Is That We Must Wonder At It, As We Should At Finding A Pearl In Rubbish.

The Excellence Of Every Art Is Its Intensity.

Turn The Key Deftly In The Oiled Wards, And Seal The Hushed Casket Of My Soul.

I Find I Cannot Exist Without Poetry

Dance And Provencal Song And Sunburnt Mirth! On For A Beaker Full Of The Warm South, Full Of The True, The Blushful Hippocrene! With Beaded Bubbles Winking At The Brim, And Purple-stained Mouth.

Death Is Life's High Meed.

They Swayed About Upon A Rocking Horse, And Thought It Pegasus.

Though A Quarrel In The Streets Is A Thing To Be Hated, The Energies Displayed In It Are Fine; The Commonest Man Shows A Grace In His Quarrel.

Heard Melodies Are Sweet, But Those Unheard Are Sweeter: Therefore, Ye Soft Pipes, Play On; Not To The Sensual Ear, But, More Endear'd, Pipe To The Spirit Ditties Of No Tone. Fair Youth, Beneath The Trees, Thou Canst Not Leave Thy Song, Nor Ever Can Those Trees Be Bare; Bold Lover, Never, Never Canst Thou Kiss, Though Winning Near The Goal Yet, Do Not Grieve; She Cannot Fade, Though Thou Hast Not Thy Bliss, For Ever Wilt Thou Love, And She Be Fair!

The Silver, Snarling Trumpets 'gan To Chide.

There Is An Old Saying "well Begun Is Half Done"-'tis A Bad One. I Would Use Instead-not Begun At All 'til Half Done.

Fade Far Away, Dissolve, And Quite Forget.

Then Felt I Like Some Watcher Of The Skies When A New Planet Swims Into His Ken.

Don't Be Discouraged By A Failure. It Can Be A Positive Experience. Failure Is, In A Sense, The Highway To Success, Inasmuch As Every Discovery Of What Is False Leads Us To Seek Earnestly After What Is True, And Every Fresh Experience Points Out Some Form Of Error Which We Shall Afterwards Carefully Avoid.

O, Sorrow! Why Dost Borrow Heart's Lightness From The Merriment Of May?

Season Of Mists And Mellow Fruitfulness, Close Bosom-friend Of The Maturing Sun; Conspiring With Him How To Load And Bless With Fruit The Vines That Round The Thatch-eves Run; To Bend With Apples The Moss’d Cottage-trees, And Fill All Fruit With Ripeness To The Core; To Swell The Gourd, And Plump The Hazel Shells With A Sweet Kernel; To Set Budding More, And Still More, Later Flowers For The Bees, Until They Think Warm Days Will Never Cease, For Summer Has O’er-brimm’d Their Clammy Cells.

When I Have Fears That I May Ceace To Be, Before My Pen Has Gleaned My Teaming Brain".

Land And Sea, Weakness And Decline Are Great Separators, But Death Is The Great Divorcer For Ever.

But Were There Ever Any Writhed Not At Passed Joy?

How Astonishingly Does The Chance Of Leaving The World Improve A Sense Of Its Natural Beauties Upon Us. Like Poor Falstaff, Although I Do Not 'babble,' I Think Of Green Fields; I Muse With The Greatest Affection On Every Flower I Have Know From My Infancy - Their Shapes And Colours Are As New To Me As If I Had Just Created Them With Superhuman Fancy.

A Little Noiseless Noise Among The Leaves, Born Of The Very Sigh That Silence Heaves.

--then On The Shore Of The Wide World I Stand Alone, And Think Till Love And Fame To Nothingness Do Sink.

Where The Nightingale Doth Sing Not A Senseless, Tranced Thing, But Divine Melodious Truth.

To The Very Last, He [napoleon] Had A Kind Of Idea; That, Namely, Of La Carrière Ouverte Aux Talents, - The Tools To Him That Can Handle Them.

How Sad It Is When A Luxurious Imagination Is Obliged In Self Defense To Deaden Its Delicacy In Vulgarity, And Riot In Things Attainable That It May Not Have Leisure To Go Mad After Things That Are Not.

I Would Sooner Fail Than Not Be Among The Greatest.

Heard Melodies Are Sweet, But Those Unheard Are Sweeter; Therefore, Ye Soft Pipes, Play On; Not To The Sensual Ear, But, More Endear'd, Pipe To The Spirit Ditties Of No Tone.

O Solitude! If I Must With Thee Dwell, Let It Not Be Among The Jumbled Heap Of Murky Buildings: Climb With Me The Steep,-- Nature's Observatory--whence The Dell, In Flowery Slopes, Its River's Crystal Swell, May Seem A Span; Let Me Thy Vigils Keep 'mongst Boughs Pavilion'd, Where The Deer's Swift Leap Startles The Wild Bee From The Foxglove Bell.

Oh What Can Ail Thee, Knight-at-arms, Alone And Palely Loitering?

Closer Of Lovely Eyes To Lovely Dreams, Lover Of Loneliness, And Wandering, Of Upcast Eye, And Tender Pondering! Thee Must I Praise Above All Other Glories That Smile Us On To Tell Delightful Stories.

The Poppies Hung Dew-dabbled On Their Stalks.

Blessed Is The Healthy Nature; It Is The Coherent, Sweetly Co-operative, Not Incoherent, Self-distracting, Self-destructive One!

Feeling Well That Breathed Words Would All Be Lost, Unheard, And Vain As Swords Against The Enchased Crocodile, Or Leaps Of Grasshoppers Against The Sun.

That Which Is Creative Must Create Itself.

My Love Is Selfish. I Cannot Breathe Without You.

How I Like Claret!...it Fills One's Mouth With A Gushing Freshness, Then Goes Down To Cool And Feverless; Then, You Do Not Feel It Quarrelling With One's Liver. No; 'tis Rather A Peace-maker, And Lies As Quiet As It Did In The Grape. Then It Is As Fragrant As The Queen Bee, And The More Ethereal Part Mounts Into The Brain, Not Assaulting The Cerebral Apartments, Like A Bully Looking For His Trull, And Hurrying From Door To Door, Bouncing Against The Wainscott, But Rather Walks Like Aladdin About His Enchanted Palace, So Gently That You Do Not Feel His Step.

A Thing Of Beauty Is A Joy Forever.

Are There Not Thousands In The World Who Love Their Fellows Even To The Death, Who Feel The Giant Agony Of The World, And More, Like Slaves To Poor Humanity, Labor For Mortal Good?

Thou Wast Not Born For Death, Immortal Bird! No Hungry Generations Tread Thee Down; The Voice I Hear This Passing Night Was Heard In Ancient Days By Emperor And Clown: Perhaps The Self-same Song That Found A Path Through The Sad Heart Of Ruth, When, Sick For Home, She Stood In Tears Amid The Alien Corn; The Same That Ofttimes Hath Charm'd Magic Casements, Opening On The Foam Of Perilous Seas, In Faery Lands Forlorn.

Much Have I Traveled In The Realms Of Gold, And Many Goodly States And Kingdoms Seen; Round Many Western Islands Have I Been Which Bards In Fealty To Apollo Hold. Oft Of One Wide Expanse Had I Been Told That Deep-brow'd Homer Ruled As His Demesne, Yet Did I Never Breathe Its Pure Serene Till I Heard Chapman Speak Out Loud And Bold: Then Felt I Like Some Watcher Of The Skies When A New Planet Swims Into His Ken; Or Like Stout Cortez When With Eagle Eyes He Stared At The Pacific, And All His Men Look'd At Each Other With A Wild Surmise, Silent, Upon A Peak In Darien.

Heard Melodies Are Sweet, But Those Unheard Are Sweeter.

Thou Wast Not Born For Death, Immortal Bird! No Hungry Generations Tread Thee Down; The Voice I Hear This Passing Night Was Heard In Ancient Days By Emperor And Clown.

A Drainless Shower Of Light Is Poesy: 'tis The Supreme Of Power; 'tis Might Half Slumbering On Its Own Right Arm.

I Have An Habitual Feeling Of My Real Life Having Past, And That I Am Leading A Posthumous Existence.

Ask Yourself My Love Whether You Are Not Very Cruel To Have So Entrammelled Me, So Destroyed My Freedom. Will You Confess This In The Letter You Must Write Immediately, And Do All You Can To Console Me In It — Make It Rich As A Draught Of Poppies To Intoxicate Me —write The Softest Words And Kiss Them That I May At Least Touch My Lips Where Yours Have Been. For Myself I Know Not How To Express My Devotion To So Fair A Form: I Want A Brighter Word Than Bright, A Fairer Word Than Fair.

Scenery Is Fine - But Human Nature Is Finer.

We Read Fine Things But Never Feel Them To The Full Until We Have Gone The Same Steps As The Author.

Philosophy Will Clip An Angel's Wings.

We Have Oftener Than Once Endeavoured To Attach Some Meaning To That Aphorism, Vulgarly Imputed To Shaftesbury, Which However We Can Find Nowhere In His Works, That "ridicule Is The Test Of Truth."

And When Thou Art Weary I'll Find Thee A Bed, Of Mosses And Flowers To Pillow Thy Head.

Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast As Thou Art--- Not In Lone Splendour Hung Aloft The Night And Watching, With Eternal Lids Apart, Like Nature's Patient, Sleepless Eremite, The Moving Waters At Their Priestlike Task Of Pure Ablution Round Earth's Human Shores, Or Gazing On The New Soft-fallen Mask Of Snow Upon The Mountains And The Moors--- No---yet Still Stedfast, Still Unchangeable, Pillowed Upon My Fair Love's Ripening Breast, To Feel For Ever Its Soft Fall And Swell, Awake For Ever In A Sweet Unrest, Still, Still To Hear Her Tender-taken Breath, And So Live Ever---or Else Swoon In Death.

His Religion At Best Is An Anxious Wish,-like That Of Rabelais, A Great Perhaps.

I Have Two Luxuries To Brood Over In My Walks, Your Loveliness And The Hour Of My Death. O That I Could Have Possession Of Them Both In The Same Minute.

Here Are Sweet Peas, On Tiptoe For A Flight; With Wings Of Gentle Flush O'er Delicate White, And Taper Fingers Catching At All Things, To Bind Them All About With Tiny Rings.

I Never Can Feel Certain Of Any Truth, But From A Clear Perception Of Its Beauty.

You Cannot Conceive How I Ache To Be With You: How I Would Die For One Hour.

Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ In Water.

Open Afresh Your Rounds Of Starry Folds, Ye Ardent Marigolds.

Fanatics Have Their Dreams, Wherewith They Weave A Paradise For A Sect.

Positive Atheism

Poetry Should Surprise By A Fine Excess And Not By Singularity, It Should Strike The Reader As A Wording Of His Own Highest Thoughts, And Appear Almost A Remembrance.

A Long Poem Is A Test Of Invention Which I Take To Be The Polar Star Of Poetry, As Fancy Is The Sails, And Imagination The Rudder.

That Queen Of Secrecy, The Violet.

Soft Closer Of Our Eyes! Low Murmur Of Tender Lullabies!

O Fret Not After Knowledge - I Have None, And Yet My Song Comes Native With The Warmth. O Fret Not After Knowledge - I Have None, And Yet The Evening Listens.

Where Are The Songs Of Spring? Aye, Where Are They? Think Not Of Them; Thou Has Thy Music Too.

Neither Poetry, Nor Ambition, Nor Love Have Any Alertness Of Countenance As They Pass By Me.

You Speak Of Lord Byron And Me; There Is This Great Difference Between Us. He Describes What He Sees I Describe What I Imagine. Mine Is The Hardest Task.

Many Have Original Minds Who Do Not Think It - They Are Led Away By Custom!

How Beautiful, If Sorrow Had Not Made Sorrow More Beautiful Than Beauty's Self.

Parting They Seemed To Tread Upon The Air, Twin Roses By The Zephyr Blown Apart Only To Meet Again More Close.

You Have Absorb'd Me. I Have A Sensation At The Present Moment As Though I Was Dissolving.

Conversation Is Not A Search After Knowledge, But An Endeavor At Effect.

I Cannot Exist Without You. I Am Forgetful Of Everything But Seeing You Again.

Give Me Women, Wine And Snuff Until I Cry Out 'hold, Enough!' You May Do So San Objection Till The Day Of Resurrection; For Bless My Beard Then Aye Shall Be My Beloved Trinity.

Failure Is In A Sense The Highway To Success, As Each Discovery Of What Is False Leads Us To Seek Earnestly After What Is True.

Severn - I - Lift Me Up - I Am Dying - I Shall Die Easy; Don't Be Frightened - Be Firm, And Thank God It Has Come.

Through The Sad Heart Of Ruth, When Sick For Home She Stood In Tears Amid The Alien Corn; The Same That Ofttimes Hath Charm'd Magic Casements, Opening On The Foam Of Perilous Seas, In Faery Lands Forlorn.

Much Have I Traveled In The Realms Of Gold, And Many Goodly States And Kingdoms Seen.

Much Have I Travell'd In The Realms Of Gold.

I Shall Soon Be Laid In The Quiet Grave--thank God For The Quiet Grave--o! I Can Feel The Cold Earth Upon Me--the Daisies Growing Over Me--o For This Quiet--it Will Be My First.

You Might Curb Your Magnanimity, And Be More Of An Artist, And Load Every Rift Of Your Subject With Ore.

Literary Men Are . . . A Perpetual Priesthood.

The Creature Has A Purpose, And His Eyes Are Bright With It.

I Wish You Could Invent Some Means To Make Me At All Happy Without You. Every Hour I Am More And More Concentrated In You; Everything Else Tastes Like Chaff In My Mouth.

My Spirit Is Too Weak--mortality Weighs Heavily On Me Like Unwilling Sleep, And Each Imagin'd Pinnacle And Steep Of Godlike Hardship Tells Me I Must Die Like A Sick Eagle Looking At The Sky.

...i Leaped Headlong Into The Sea, And Thereby Have Become More Acquainted With The Soundings, The Quicksands, And The Rocks, Than If I Had Stayed Upon The Green Shore, And Piped A Silly Pipe, And Took Tea And Comfortable Advice.

The Roaring Of The Wind Is My Wife And The Stars Through The Window Pane Are My Children.

Joy, Whose Hand Is Ever At His Lips, Bidding Adieu

Asleep In Lap Of Legends Old.

I Will Give You A Definition Of A Proud Man: He Is A Man Who Has Neither Vanity Nor Wisdom One Filled With Hatreds Cannot Be Vain, Neither Can He Be Wise.

I Scarcely Remember Counting Upon Happiness—i Look Not For It If It Be Not In The Present Hour—nothing Startles Me Beyond The Moment. The Setting Sun Will Always Set Me To Rights, Or If A Sparrow Come Before My Window I Take Part In Its Existence And Pick About The Gravel.

O For Ten Years, That I May Overwhelm / Myself In Poesy; So I May Do The Deed / That My Own Soul Has To Itself Decreed.

There Was An Awful Rainbow Once In Heaven: We Know Her Woof, Her Texture; She Is Given In The Dull Catalogue Of Common Things. Philosophy Will Clip An Angel's Wings.

It Can Be Said Of Him, When He Departed He Took A Man's Life With Him. No Sounder Piece Of British Manhood Was Put Together In That Eighteenth Century Of Time.

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