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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.

-John Keats

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This Living Hand, Now

John Keats

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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.

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

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

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.

All Writing Is A Form Of Prayer.

O Latest Born And Loveliest Vision Far Of All Olympus' Faded Hierarchy.

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

... For, By All The Stars That Tend Thy Bidding, I Do Think The Bars That Kept My Spirit In Are Burst - That 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.

But Were There Ever Any Writhed Not At Passed Joy?

Scenery Is Fine - But Human Nature Is Finer.

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

To Hope "when By My Solitary Hearth I Sit, And Hateful Thoughts Enwrap My Soul In Gloom; When No Fair Dreams Before My 'mind's Eye' Flit, And The Bare Heath Of Life Presents No Bloom; Sweet Hope, Ethereal Balm Upon Me Shed, And Wave Thy Silver Pinions O'er My Head.

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.

Deep In The Shady Sadness Of A Vale Far Sunken From The Healthy Breath Of Morn, Far From The Fiery Noon And Eve's One Star, Sat Gray-haired Saturn, Quiet As A Stone, Still As The Silence Round About His Lair.

Alas! When Passion Is Both Meek And Wild!

I Find That I Can Have No Enjoyment In The World But The Continual Drinking Of Knowledge. I Find There Is No Worthy Pursuit But The Idea Of Doing Some Good For The World.

Shed No Tear - O, Shed No Tear! The Flower Will Bloom Another Year. Weep No More - O, Weep No More! Young Buds Sleep In The Root's White Core.

Adieu! Adieu! Thy Plaintive Anthem Fades Past The Near Meadows, Over The Still Stream, Up The Hill-side; And Now 'tis Buried Deep In The Next Valley-glades: Was It A Vision, Or A Waking Dream? Fled Is That Music:--do I Wake Or Sleep?

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

He, Who Is Gone, Was One Of The Very Kindest Friends I Possessed, And Yet He Was Not Kinder Perhaps To Me, Than To Others. His Intense Mind And Powerful Feelings Would, I Truly Believe, Have Done The World Some Service, Had His Life Been Spared But He Was Of Too Sensitive A Nature And Thus He Was Destroyed!

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

I Shall Soon Be Laid In The Quiet Grave - Thank God For The Quiet Grave

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

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.

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."

Bards Of Passion And Of Mirth, Ye Have Left Your Souls On Earth! Have Ye Souls In Heaven Too, Double-lived In Regions New?

The Day Is Gone, And All Its Sweets Are Gone!

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.

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

The Silver, Snarling Trumpets 'gan To Chide.

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.

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.

In A Drear-nighted December, Too Happy, Happy Brook, Thy Bubblings Ne'er Remember Apollo's Summer Look; But With A Sweet Forgetting, They Stay Their Crystal Fretting, Never, Never Petting About The Frozen Time.

But Let Me See Thee Stoop From Heaven On Wings That Fill The Sky With Silver Glitterings!

You Are Always New, The Last Of Your Kisses Was Ever The Sweetest.

I Have Met With Women Whom I Really Think Would Like To Be Married To A Poem And To Be Given Away By A Novel.

Who Hath Not Seen Thee Oft Amid Thy Store? Sometimes Whoever Seeks Abroad May Find Thee Sitting Careless On A Granary Floor, Thy Hair Soft-lifted By The Winnowing Wind; Or On A Half-reap'd Furrow Sound Asleep, Drows'd With The Fume Of Poppies, While Thy Hook Spares The Next Swath And All Its Twined Flowers.

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

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.

What Is More Gentle Than A Wind Is Summer?

I Cannot See What Flowers Are At My Feet, Nor What Soft Incense Hangs Upon The Boughs, But, In Embalmed Darkness, Guess Each Sweet.

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.

Call The World If You Please "the Vale Of Soul-making." Then You Will Find Out The Use Of The World.

Poetry Should Be Great And Unobtrusive, A Thing Which Enters Into One's Soul, And Does Not Startle It Or Amaze It With Itself, But With Its Subject.

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.

How Does The Poet Speak To Men With Power, But By Being Still More A Man Than They

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

Failure Is, In A Sense, The Highway To Success.

Success And Failure

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

My Creed Is Love And You Are Its Only Tenet.

I Want A Brighter Word Than Bright

Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast As Thou Art-- Not In Lone Splendour Hung Aloft The Night And Watching, With Eternal Lids Apart, Like Nature's Patient, Sleepless Eremite.

No Stir Of Air Was There, Not So Much Life As On A Summer's Day Robs Not One Light Seed From The Feather'd Grass, But Where The Dead Leaf Fell, There Did It Rest.

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

A Man's Life Of Any Worth Is A Continual Allegory, And Very Few Eyes Can See The Mystery Of His Life, A Life Like The Scriptures, Figurative.

Philosophy Will Clip An Angel's Wings.

I Have So Much Of You In My Heart.

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

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

Nothing Ever Becomes Real Till It Is Experienced.

I Have Loved The Principle Of Beauty In All Things.

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

Now A Soft Kiss - Aye, By That Kiss, I Vow An Endless Bliss.

My Imagination Is A Monastery And I Am Its Monk.

And How They Kist Each Other's Tremulous Eyes.

So, When Dark Thoughts My Boding Spirit Shroud, Sweet Hope! Celestial Influence Round Me Shed Waving Thy Silver Pinions O'er My Head.

Knowledge Enormous Makes A God Of Me.

Health Is My Expected Heaven.

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

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

Beauty Is Truth, Truth Beauty

The Thought, The Deadly Thought Of Solitude.

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

The Air Is All Softness.

'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?

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.

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

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

I See A Lily On Thy Brow, With Anguish Moist And Fever Dew; And On Thy Cheek A Fading Rose Fast Withereth Too.

In A Drear-nighted December, Too Happy, Happy Tree, Thy Branches Ne'er Remember Their Green Felicity.

Works Of Genius Are The First Things In The World.

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

I Am Certain Of Nothing But The Holiness Of The Heart’s Affections And The Truth Of The Imagination – What The Imagination Seizes As Beauty Must Be Truth – Whether It Existed Before Or Not – For I Have The Same Idea Of All Our Passions As Of Love They Are All In Their Sublime, Creative Of Essential Beauty . . .

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

Souls Of Poets Dead And Gone, What Elysium Have Ye Known, Happy Field Or Mossy Cavern, Choicer Than The Mermaid Tavern? Have Ye Tippled Drink More Fine Than Mine Host's Canary Wine?

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

The World Is Too Brutal For Me-i Am Glad There Is Such A Thing As The Grave-i Am Sure I Shall Never Have Any Rest Till I Get There.

O Magic Sleep! O Comfortable Bird, That Broodest O'er The Troubled Sea Of The Mind Till It Is Hush'd And Smooth!

Darkling I Listen; And, For Many A Time I Have Been Half In Love With Easeful Death, Called Him Soft Names In Many A Muse' D Rhyme, To Take Into The Air My Quiet Breath; Now More Than Ever Seems It Rich To Die, To Cease Upon The Midnight With No Pain, While Thou Art Pouring Forth Thy Soul Abroad In Such An Ecstasy!

The Grandeur Of The Dooms We Have Imagined For The Mighty Dead.

I Wish To Believe In Immortality-i Wish To Live With You Forever.

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

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

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.

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

My Mind Has Been The Most Discontented And Restless One That Ever Was Put Into A Body Too Small For It.

But The Rose Leaves Herself Upon The Brier, For Winds To Kiss And Grateful Bees To Feed.

There Is A Budding Tomorrow In Midnight.

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.

That Which Is Creative Must Create Itself.

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

... 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.

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

Tender Is The Night

Pleasure Is Oft A Visitant; But Pain Clings Cruelly To Us.

Pain And Pleasure

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.

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

Whatever The Imagination Seizes As Beauty Must Be Truth -whether It Existed Before Or Not

An Extensive Knowledge Is Needful To Thinking People-it Takes Away The Heat And Fever; And Helps, By Widening Speculation, To Ease The Burden Of The Mystery.

I Cannot Exist Without You - I Am Forgetful Of Every Thing But Seeing You Again - My Life Seems To Stop There - I See No Further. You Have Absorb'd Me. I Have A Sensation At The Present Moment As Though I Were Dissolving... I Have Been Astonished That Men Could Die Martyrs For Religion - I Have Shudder'd At It - I Shudder No More - I Could Be Martyr'd For My Religion - Love Is My Religion - I Could Die For That - I Could Die For You. My Creed Is Love And You Are Its Only Tenet - You Have Ravish'd Me Away By A Power I Cannot Resist.

The Poetry Of Earth Is Never Dead When All The Birds Are Faint With The Hot Sun, And Hide I Cooling Trees, A Voice Will Run From Hedge To Hedge About The New-mown Mead.

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

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

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.

Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ In Water.

If Something Is Not Beautiful, It Is Probably Not True.

Thou Foster-child Of Silence And Slow Time.

Foster Children

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

And There Shall Be For Thee All Soft Delight That Shadowy Thought Can Win, A Bright Torch, And A Casement Ope At Night, To Let The Warm Love In!

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

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

If I Should Die, I Have Left No Immortal Work Behind Me — Nothing To Make My Friends Proud Of My Memory — But I Have Loved The Principle Of Beauty In All Things, And If I Had Had Time I Would Have Made Myself Remembered.

He Who Saddens At Thought Of Idleness Cannot Be Idle, / And He's Awake Who Thinks Himself Asleep.

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

Life Is But A Day; A Fragile Dewdrop On Its Perilous Way From A Tree's Summit.

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.

The Poppies Hung Dew-dabbled On Their Stalks.

Fade Far Away, Dissolve, And Quite Forget.

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

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!

That Queen Of Secrecy, The Violet.

If Poetry Does Not Come As Naturally As Leaves To A Tree, Then It Better Not Come At All.

I Will Clamber Through The Clouds And Exist.

Nothing Ever Becomes Real Till Experienced – Even A Proverb Is No Proverb Until Your Life Has Illustrated It

Tall Oaks Branch Charmed By The Earnest Stars Dream And So Dream All Night Without A Stir.

I Always Made An Awkward Bow.

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

One Of The Most Mysterious Of Semi-speculations Is, One Would Suppose, That Of One Mind's Imagining Into Another

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

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.

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.

Sudden A Thought Came Like A Full-blown Rose, Flushing His Brow.

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

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.

You Are Always New To Me.

My Love Is Selfish. I Cannot Breathe Without You.

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.

Of Love, That Fairest Joys Give Most Unrest.

Asleep In Lap Of Legends Old.

Load Every Rift With Ore.

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

Positive Atheism

Nothing Is Finer For The Purposes Of Great Productions Than A Very Gradual Ripening Of The Intellectual Powers.

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.

Give Me Books, French Wine, Fruit, Fine Weather And A Little Music Played Out Of Doors By Somebody I Do Not Know.

Fast Fading Violets Cover'd Up In Leaves; And Mid-may's Eldest Child, The Coming Musk-rose, Full Of Dewy Wine, The Murmurous Haunt Of Flies On Summer Eves.

What Is There In Thee, Moon! That Thou Should'st Move My Heart So Potently?

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.

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

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

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

I Myself Am Pursuing The Same Instinctive Course As The Veriest Human Animal You Can Think Of I Am, However Young, Writing At Random Straining At Particles Of Light In The Midst Of A Great Darkness Without Knowing The Bearing Of Any One Assertion, Of Any One Opinion. Yet May I Not In This Be Free From Sin?

Who, Of Men, Can Tell That Flowers Would Bloom, Or That Green Fruit Would Swell To Melting Pulp, That Fish Would Have Bright Mail, The Earth Its Dower Of River, Wood, And Vale, The Meadows Runnels, Runnels Pebble-stones, The Seed Its Harvest, Or The Lute Its Tones, Tones Ravishment, Or Ravishment Its Sweet, If Human Souls Did Never Kiss And Greet?

O For A Life Of Sensations Rather Than Of Thoughts!

When I Behold, Upon The Night's Starr'd Face, Huge Cloudy Symbols Of A High Romance, And Think That I May Never Live To Trace Their Shadows, With The Magic Hand Of Chance.

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

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

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

...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 Poetry Of The Earth Is Never Dead.

I Never Was In Love - Yet The Voice And The Shape Of A Woman Has Haunted Me These Two Days.

Ay, On The Shores Of Darkness There Is A Light, And Precipices Show Untrodden Green; There Is A Budding Morrow In Midnight; There Is Triple Sight In Blindness Keen.

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

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 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.

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

A Quote About Drinking Is A Joy Forever

Wine Is Only Sweet To Happy Men.

On A Lone Winter Evening, When The Frost Has Wrought A Silence.

Dry Your Eyes O Dry Your Eyes, For I Was Taught In Paradise To Ease My Breast Of Melodies.

To Stay Youthful, Stay Useful.

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.

The Excellence Of Every Art Is Its Intensity.

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

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.

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.

Nor Do We Merely Feel These Essences For One Short Hour No, Even As These Trees That Whisper Round A Temple Become Soon Dear As The Temples Self, So Does The Moon, The Passion Posey, Glories Infinite, Haunt Us Till They Become A Cheering Light Unto Our Souls And Bound To Us So Fast, That Wheather There Be Shine, Or Gloom O'er Cast, They Always Must Be With Us, Or We Die.

Though The Most Beautiful Creature Were Waiting For Me At The End Of A Journey Or A Walk; Though The Carpet Were Of Silk, The Curtains Of The Morning Clouds; The Chairs And Sofa Stuffed With Cygnet's Down; The Food Manna, The Wine Beyond Claret, The Window Opening On Winander Mere, I Should Not Feel -or Rather My Happiness Would Not Be So Fine, As My Solitude Is Sublime.

So Rainbow-sided, Touch'd With Miseries, She Seem'd, At Once, Some Penanced Lady Elf, Some Demon's Mistress, Or The Demon's Self.

O Aching Time! O Moments Big As Years!

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

Love Is My Religion - I Could Die For It.

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

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.

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.

Praise Or Blame Has But A Momentary Effect On The Man Whose Love Of Beauty In The Abstract Makes Him A Severe Critic On His Own Works.

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.

Let Us Not Go Hurrying About And Collecting Honey, Bee-like Buzzing Here And There For A Knowledge Of What Is Not To Be Arrived At, But Let Us Open Our Leaves Like A Flower, And Be Passive And Receptive, Budding Patiently Under The Eye Of Apollo, And Taking Hints From Every Noble Insect That Favours Us With A Visit - Sap Will Be Given Us For Meat And Dew For Drink.

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.

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.

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

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.

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