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I Never Was Attached To That Great Sect, Whose Doctrine Is, That Each One Should Select Out Of The Crowd A Mistress Or A Friend, And All The Rest, Though Fair And Wise, Commend To Cold Oblivion, Though It Is In The Code Of Modern Morals, And The Beaten Road Which Those Poor Slaves With Weary Footsteps Tread, Who Travel To Their Home Among The Dead By The Broad Highway Of The World, And So With One Chained Friend Perhaps A Jealous Foe, The Dreariest And The Longest Journey Go.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

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I Never Was Attached

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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I Never Was Attached To That Great Sect, Whose Doctrine Is, That Each One Should Select Out Of The Crowd A Mistress Or A Friend, And All The Rest, Though Fair And Wise, Commend To Cold Oblivion, Though It Is In The Code Of Modern Morals, And The Beaten Road Which Those Poor Slaves With Weary Footsteps Tread, Who Travel To Their Home Among The Dead By The Broad Highway Of The World, And So With One Chained Friend Perhaps A Jealous Foe, The Dreariest And The Longest Journey Go.

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Less Oft Peace In Shelley's Mind, Than Calm In Waters Seen.

O, Wind, If Winter Comes, Can Spring Be Far Behind?

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Revenge And Wrong Bring Forth Their Kind; The Foul Cubs Like Their Parents Are.

If God Has Spoken, Why Is The World Not Convinced.

Lightning My Pilot Sits; In A Cavern Under Is Fettered The Thunder, It Struggles And Howls At Fits; Over Earth And Ocean, With Gentle Motion, This Pilot Is Guiding Me, Lured By The Love Of The Genii That Move In The Depths Of The Purple Sea; Over The Rills, And The Crags, And The Hills, Over The Lakes And The Plains, Wherever He Dream, Under Mountain Or Stream The Spirit He Loves Remains; And I All The While Bask In Heaven's Blue Smile, Whilst He Is Dissolving In Rains.

Like A Glowworm Golden, In A Dell Of Dew, Scattering Unbeholden Its Aerial Blue Among The Flowers And Grass Which Screen It From The View.

I Never Was Attached To That Great Sect, Whose Doctrine Is That Each One Should Select Out Of The Crowd A Mistress Or A Friend, And All The Rest, Though Fair And Wise, Commend, To Cold Oblivion.

Kiss Me, So Long But As A Kiss May Last!

Until The Mind Can Love, And Admire, And Trust, And Hope, And Endure, Reasoned Principles Of Moral Conduct Are Seeds Cast Upon The Highway Of Life Which The Unconscious Passenger Tramples Into Dust.

Nothing In The World Is Single, All Things By A Law Divine, In One Spirit Meet And Mingle-why Not I With Thine?

Truth Has Always Been Found To Promote The Best Interests Of Mankind.

It Is Among Men Of Genius And Science That Atheism Alone Is Found.

The Sunlight Claps The Earth, And The Moonbeams Kiss The Sea: What Are All These Kissings Worth, If Thou Kiss Not Me?

Where Is Perfection? Where I Cannot Reach.

Before Man Can Be Free, And Equal, And Truly Wise, He Must Cast Aside The Chains Of Habit And Superstition; He Must Strip Sensuality Of Its Pomp, And Selfishness Of Its Excuses, And Contemplate Actions And Objects As They Really Are.

If A Person's Religious Ideas Correspond Not With Your Own, Love Him Nevertheless

In Proportion As A Man Is Selfish, So Far Has He Receded From The Motive Which Constitutes Virtue.

Man Has No Right To Kill His Brother. It Is No Excuse That He Does So In Uniform: He Only Adds The Infamy Of Servitude To The Crime Of Murder.

In A Drama Of The Highest Order There Is Little Food For Censure Or Hatred; It Teaches Rather Self-knowledge And Self-respect.

Better Than All Measures Of Delightful Sound, Better Than All Treasures That In Books Are Found, Thy Skill To Poet Were, Thou Scorner Of The Ground!

War Is The Statesman's Game, The Priest's Delight, The Lawyer's Jest, The Hired Assassin's Trade.

Here I Swear, And As I Break My Oath May ... Eternity Blast Me, Here I Swear That Never Will I Forgive Christianity! It Is The Only Point On Which I Allow Myself To Encourage Revenge... Oh, How I Wish I Were The Antichrist, That It Were Mine To Crush The Demon; To Hurl Him To His Native Hell Never To Rise Again - I Expect To Gratify Some Of This Insatiable Feeling In Poetry.

All High Poetry Is Infinite; It Is As The First Acorn, Which Contained All Oaks Potentially.

I Pant, I Sink, I Tremble, I Expire!

Love Is Free; To Promise For Ever To Love The Same Woman Is Not Less Absurd Than To Promise To Believe The Same Creed; Such A Vow In Both Cases Excludes Us From All Inquiry.

The Advocates Of Literal Interpretation Have Been The Most Efficacious Enemies Of Those Doctrines Whose Nature They Profess To Venerate.

And Spring Arose On The Garden Fair, Like The Spirit Of Love Felt Everywhere; And Each Flower And Herb On Earth's Dark Breast Rose From The Dreams Of Its Wintry Rest.

True Love In This Differs From Gold And Clay, That To Divide Is Not To Take Away. Love Is Like Understanding, That Grows Bright, Gazing On Many Truths.

Forget The Dead, The Past? O Yet There Are Ghosts That May Take Revenge For It, Memories That Make The Heart A Tomb, Regrets Which Gild Thro’ The Spirit’s Gloom, And With Ghastly Whispers Tell That Joy, Once Lost, Is Pain.

There Is No Disease, Bodily Or Mental, Which Adoption Of Vegetable Diet, And Pure Water Has Not Infallibly Mitigated, Wherever The Experiment Has Been Fairly Tried.

The Great Instrument Of Moral Good Is The Imagination.

Thou Paradise Of Exiles, Italy!

No One Has Yet Been Found Resolute Enough In Dogmatizing To Deny That Nature Made Man Equal; That Society Has Destroyed This Equality Is A Truth Not More Incontrovertible.

I Love All Waste And Solitary Places; Where We Taste The Pleasure Of Believing What We See Is Boundless, As We Wish Our Souls To Be.

Life, Like A Dome Of Many-coloured Glass, Stains The White Radiance Of Eternity.

How Wonderful Is Death! Death And His Brother Sleep.

The One Remains, The Many Change And Pass; Heaven's Light Forever Shines, Earth's Shadows Fly; Life, Like A Dome Of Many-coloured Glass, Stains The White Radiance Of Eternity, Until Death Tramples It To Fragments.

Let The Advocate Of Animal Food, Force Himself To A Decisive Experiment On Its Fitness, And As Plutarch Recommends, Tear A Living Lamb With His Teeth, And Plunging His Head Into Its Vitals, Slake His Thirst With The Steaming Blood; When Fresh From The Deed Of Horror Let Him Revert To The Irresistible Instincts Of Nature That Would Rise In Judgment Against It, And Say, Nature Formed Me For Such Work As This. Then, And Then Only, Would He Be Consistent.

To Be Omnipotent But Friendless Is To Reign.

The Allegory Of Adam And Eve Eating Of The Tree Of Evil, And Entailing Upon Their Posterity The Wrath Of God And The Loss Of Everlasting Life, Admits Of No Other Explanation Than The Disease And Crime That Have Flowed From Unnatural Diet.

I Was An Infant When My Mother Went To See An Atheist Burned. She Took Me There. The Dark-robed Priests Were Met Around The Pile; The Multitude Was Gazing Silently; And As The Culprit Passed With Dauntless Mien, Tempered Disdain In His Unaltering Eye, Mixed With A Quiet Smile, Shone Calmly Forth; The Thirsty Fire Crept Round His Manly Limbs; His Resolute Eyes Were Scorched To Blindness Soon; His Death-pang Rent My Heart! The Insensate Mob Uttered A Cry Of Triumph, And I Wept. Weep Not, Child! Cried My Mother, For That Man Has Said, 'there Is No God.'

It Is Only By Hearsay (by Word Of Mouth Passed Down From Generation To Generation) That Whole Peoples Adore The God Of Their Fathers And Of Their Priests: Authority, Confidence, Submission And Custom With Them Take The Place Of Conviction Or Of Proofs: They Prostrate Themselves And Pray, Because Their Fathers Taught Them To Prostrate Themselves And Pray: But Why Did Their Fathers Fall On Their Knees?

I Silently Laugh At My Own Cenotaph, And Out Of The Caverns Of Rain, Like A Child From The Womb, Like A Ghost From The Tomb, I Arise And Unbuild It Again.

I Love Tranquil Solitude And Such Society As Is Quiet, Wise, And Good.

Worse Than A Bloody Hand Is A Hard Heart.

How Beautiful Is Sunset When The Glow Of Heaven Descends Upon A Land Like Thee, Thou Paradise Of Exiles, Italy!

Every Man, In Proportion To His Virtue, Considers Himself, With Respect To The Great Community Of Mankind, As The Steward And Guardian Of Their Interests In The Property Which He Chances To Possess. Every Man, In Proportion To His Wisdom, Sees The Manner In Which It Is His Duty To Employ The Resources Which The Consent Of Mankind Has Intrusted To His Discretion.

The Good Want Power, But To Weep Barren Tears. The Powerful Goodness Want: Worse Need For Them. The Wise Want Love; And Those Who Love Want Wisdom.

He Hath Awakened From The Dream Of Life.

We Rest; A Dream Has Power To Poison Sleep. We Rise; One Wand'ring Thought Pollutes The Day. We Feel, Conceive, Or Reason; Laugh Or Weep, Embrace Fond Woe, Or Cast Our Cares Away; It Is The Same: For, Be It Joy Or Sorrow, The Path Of Its Departure Still Is Free. Man's Yesterday May Ne'er Be Like His Morrow; Nought May Endure But Mutability!

Love's Pestilence, And Her Slow Dogs Of War.

Know Ye What It Is To Be A Child? It Is To Have A Spirit Yet Streaming From The Waters Of Baptism; It Is To Believe In Love, To Believe In Loveliness, To Believe In Belief.

Ah, Woe Is Me! Winter Is Come And Gone. But Grief Returns With The Revolving Year.

January Gray Is Here, Like A Sexton By Her Grave; February Bears The Bier, March With Grief Doth Howl And Rave, And April Weeps -- But, O Ye Hours! Follow With May's Fairest Flowers.

The Wise Want Love; And Those Who Love Want Wisdom.

Oh, That The Wise From Their Bright Minds Would Kindle Such Lamps Within The Dome Of This Dim World That The Pale Name Of Priest Might Shrink And Dwindle Into The Hell From Which It First Was Furled.

Poetry, In A General Sense, May Be Defined To Be 'the Expression Of The Imagination': And Poetry Is Connate With The Origin Of Man.

The Galilean Is Not A Favorite Of Mine. So Far From Owing Him Any Thanks For His Favor, I Cannot Avoid Confessing That I Owe A Secret Grudge To His Carpentership.

O World! O Life! O Time! On Whose Last Steps I Climb

Away, Away, From Men And Towns, To The Wild Wood And The Downs, - To The Silent Wilderness, Where The Soul Need Not Repress Its Music.

The Most Fertile Districts Of The Habitable Globe Are Now Actually Cultivated By Men For Animals, At A Delay And Waste Of Aliment Absolutely Incapable Of Calculation

Necessity, Thou Mother Of The World!

The Day Becomes More Solemn And Serene When Noon Is Past; There Is A Harmony In Autumn, And A Lustre In Its Sky, Which Through The Summer Is Not Heard Or Seen, As If It Could Not Be, As If It Had Not Been! Thus Let Thy Power, Which Like The Truth Of Nature On My Passive Youth Descended, To My Onward Life Supply Its Calm, To One Who Worships Thee, And Every Form Containing Thee, Whom, Spirit Fair, Thy Spells Did Bind To Fear Himself, And Love All Human Kind.

Poetry Is A Sword Of Lightning, Ever Unsheathed, Which Consumes The Scabbard That Would Contain It.

Then Black Despair, The Shadow Of A Starless Night, Was Thrown Over The World In Which I Moved Alone.

And On The Pedestal These Words Appear:  'my Name Is Ozymandias, King Of Kings:  Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair!'  nothing Beside Remains. Round The Decay  Of That Colossal Wreck, Boundless And Bare  The Lone And Level Sands Stretch Far Away.

Whatever May Be His True And Final Destination, There Is A Spirit Within Him At Enmity With Nothingness And Dissolution. This Is The Character Of All Life And Being.

Whence Are We, And Why Are We? Of What Scene The Actors Or Spectators?

O! I Burn With Impatience For The Moment Of The Dissolution Of Intolerance; It Has Injured Me.

Soul Meets Soul On Lovers' Lips.

Sing Again, With Your Dear Voice Revealing. A Tone Of Some World Far From Ours, Where Music And Moonlight And Feeling Are One.

The Babe Is At Peace Within The Womb, The Corpse Is At Rest Within The Tomb. We Begin In What We End.

We Know Not What We Do When We Speak Words.

Tragedy Delights By Affording A Shadow Of The Pleasure Which Exists In Pain.

Narrow The Heart That Loves, The Brain That Contemplates, The Life That Wears, The Spirit That Creates One Object, And One Form, And Builds Thereby A Sepulchre For Its Eternity.

God Is Represented As Infinite, Eternal, Incomprehensible; He Is Contained Under Every Predicate In Non That The Logic Of Ignorance Could Fabricate.

Through The Sunset Of Hope, Like The Shapes Of A Dream, What Paradise Islands Of Glory Gleam!

Love! Dearest, Sweetest Power! How Much Are We Indebted To Thee! How Much Superior Are Even Thy Miseries To The Pleasures Which Arise From Other Sources!

I Wield The Flail Of The Lashing Hail, And Whiten The Green Plains Under; And Then Again I Dissolve It In Rain, And Laugh As I Pass In Thunder.

... A Wild Dissolving Bliss Over My Frame He Breathed, Approaching Near, And Bent His Eyes Of Kindling Tenderness Near Mine, And On My Lips Impressed A Lingering Kiss

He Gave Man Speech, And Speech Created Thought, Which Is The Measure Of The Universe.

O'er Egypt's Land Of Memory Floods Are Level, And They Are Thine, O Nile! And Well Thou Knowest The Soul-sustaining Airs And Blasts Of Evil, And Fruits, And Poisons Spring Where'er Thou Flowest.

I Have Been A Wanderer Among Distant Fields. I Have Sailed Down Mighty Rivers.

Peace Is In The Grave.

Peter Was Dull; He Was At First Dull; - Oh, So Dull - So Very Dull! Whether He Talked, Wrote, Or Rehearsed - Still With His Dulness Was He Cursed - Dull -beyond All Conception - Dull.

The Conceptions Which Any Nation Or Individual Entertains Of The God Of Its Popular Worship May Be Inferred From Their Own Actions And Opinions, Which Are The Subjects Of Their Approbation Among Their Fellow-men.

Obscenity, Which Is Ever Blasphemy Against The Divine Beauty In Life, Is A Monster For Which The Corruption Of Society Forever Brings Forth New Food, Which It Devours In Secret.

First Our Pleasures Die - And Then Our Hopes, And Then Our Fears - And When These Are Dead, The Debt Is Due Dust Claims Dust - And We Die Too.

Some Say That Gleams Of A Remoter World Visit The Soul In Sleep That Death Is Slumber, And That Its Shapes The Busy Thoughts Outnumber Of Those Who Wake And Live.

I Bring Fresh Showers For The Thirsting Flowers, From The Seas And The Streams; I Bear Light Shade For The Leaves When Laid In Their Noonday Dreams.

It Is Easier To Suppose That The Universe Has Existed For All Eternity Than To Conceive A Being Beyond Its Limits Capable Of Creating It.

It Is Thus That The Generality Of Mankind, Whose Lot Is Ignorance, Attributes To The Divinity, Not Only The Unusual Effects Which Strike Them, But Moreover The Most Simple Events, Of Which The Causes Are The Most Simple To Understand By Whomever Is Able To Study Them. In A Word, Man Has Always Respected Unknown Causes, Surprising Effects That His Ignorance Kept Him From Unraveling. It Was On This Debris Of Nature That Man Raised The Imaginary Colossus Of The Divinity.

Senseless Is The Breast And Cold Which Relenting Love Would Fold; Bloodless Are The Veins And Chill Which The Pulse Of Pain Did Fill; Every Little Living Nerve That From Bitter Words Did Swerve Round The Tortur'd Lips And Brow, Are Like Sapless Leaflets Now Frozen Upon December's Bough.

One Nightingale In An Interfluous Wood Satiate The Hungry Dark With Melody.

Man Who Man Would Be, Must Rule The Empire Of Himself.

Everytime We Say That God Is The Author Of Some Phenomenon, That Signifies That We Are Ignorant Of How Such A Phenomenon Was Caused By The Forces Of Nature.

Forces Of Nature

Of Planets, Struggling Fierce Towards Heaven's Free Wilderness.

I Love Snow, Snow, And All The Forms Of Radiant Frost.

The Odious And Disgusting Aristocracy Of Wealth Is Built Upon The Ruins Of All That Is Good In Chivalry Or Republicanism; And Luxury Is The Forerunner Of A Barbarism Scarcely Capable Of Cure.

There Is A Harmony In Autumn, And A Luster In Its Sky, Which Through The Summer Is Not Heard Or Seen, As If It Could Not Be, As If It Had Not Been!

The Psychological And Moral Comfort Of A Presence At Once Humble And Understanding-this Is The Greatest Benefit That The Dog Has Bestowed Upon Man.

The Practice Of Utter Sincerity Towards Other Men Would Avail To No Good End, If They Were Incapable Of Practising It Towards Their Own Minds. In Fact, Truth Cannot Be Communicated Until It Is Perceived.

I Love Tranquil Solitude.

When My Cats Aren't Happy, I'm Not Happy. Not Because I Care About Their Mood But Because I Know They're Just Sitting There Thinking Up Ways To Get Even.

Contemporary Criticism Only Represents The Amount Of Ignorance Genius Has To Contend With. . . . Time Will Reverse The Judgement Of The Vulgar.

A Poet Is A Nightingale, Who Sits In Darkness And Sings To Cheer Its Own Solitude With Sweet Sounds.

Men Of England, Wherefore Plough For The Lords Who Lay You Low?

Religion Pervades Intensely The Whole Frame Of Society, And Is According To The Temper Of The Mind Which It Inhabits, A Passion, A Persuasion, An Excuse, A Refuge; Never A Check.

A Sensitive Plant In A Garden Grew, And The Young Winds Fed It With Silver Dew, And It Opened Its Fan Like Leaves To The Light, And Closed Them Beneath The Kisses Of Night.

In Each Human Heart Terror Survives The Ravin It Has Gorged: The Loftiest Fear All That They Would Disdain To Think Were True: Hypocrisy And Custom Make Their Minds The Fanes Of Many A Worship, Now Outworn. They Dare Not Devise Good For Man's Estate, And Yet They Know Not That They Do Not Dare.

Know What It Is To Be A Child? It Is To Be Something Very Different From The Man Of Today. It Is To Have A Spirit Yet Streaming From The Waters Of Baptism; It Is To Believe In Belief; It Is To Be So Little That Elves Can Reach To Whisper In Your Ear; It Is To Turn Pumpkins Into Coaches, And Mice Into Horses, Lowness Into Loftiness, And Nothing Into Everything, For Each Child Had Its Fairy Godmother In Its Soul.

All Of Us Who Are Worth Anything, Spend Our Manhood In Unlearning The Follies, Or Expiating The Mistakes Of Our Youth.

Self Improvement

There Is A Harmony In Autumn, And A Luster In Its Sky...

Reason Respects The Differences, And Imagination The Similitudes Of Things.

In Proportion To The Love Existing Among Men, So Will Be The Community Of Property And Power. Among True And Real Friends, All Is Common; And, Were Ignorance And Envy And Superstition Banished From The World, All Mankind Would Be Friends. The Only Perfect And Genuine Republic Is That Which Comprehends Every Living Being. Those Distinctions Which Have Been Artificially Set Up, Of Nations, Societies, Families, And Religions, Are Only General Names, Expressing The Abhorrence And Contempt With Which Men Blindly Consider Their Fellowmen.

If We Reason, We Would Be Understood; If We Imagine, We Would That The Airy Children Of Our Brain Were Born Anew Within Another's; If We Feel, We Would That Another's Nerves Should Vibrate To Our Own, That The Beams Of Their Eyes Should Kindle At Once And Mix And Melt Into Our Own, That Lips Of Motionless Ice Should Not Reply To Lips Quivering And Burning With The Heart's Best Blood. This Is Love.

The Same Means That Have Supported Every Other Popular Belief Have Supported Christianity. War, Imprisonment, And Falsehood; Deeds Of Unexampled And Incomparable Atrocity Have Made It What It Is.

Swiftly Walk O'er The Western Wave, Spirit Of Night! Out Of The Misty Eastern Cave, Where, All The Long And Lone Daylight, Thou Wovest Dreams Of Joyand Fear, Which Make Thee Terrible And Dear, Swift Be Thy Flight!

That Sweet Sleep Which Medicines All Pain.

Joy, Once Lost, Is Pain

Thou Hast A Voice, Great Mountain, To Repeal. Large Codes Of Fraud And Woe; Not Understood By All, But Which The Wise, And Great, And Good Interpret, Or Make Felt, Or Deeply Feel.

The Great Secret Of Morals Is Love; Or A Going Out Of Our Own Nature, And An Identification Of Ourselves With The Beautiful Which Exists In Thought, Action, Or Person, Not Our Own.

Change Is Certain. Peace Is Followed By Disturbances; Departure Of Evil Men By Their Return. Such Recurrences Should Not Constitute Occasions For Sadness But Realities For Awareness, So That One May Be Happy In The Interim.

The Flood Of Time Is Rolling On; We Stand Upon Its Brink, Whilst They Are Gone To Glide In Peace Down Death's Mysterious Stream. Have Ye Done Well?

Man Is Of Soul And Body, Formed For Deeds Of High Resolve; On Fancy's Boldest Wing.

A Dream Has Power To Poison Sleep.

And Many More Destructions Played In This Ghastly Masquerade, All Disguised, Even To The Eyes, Like Bishops, Lawyers, Peers, Or Spies.

When The Lamp Is Shattered The Light In The Dust Lies Dead - When The Cloud Is Scattered The Rainbow's Glory Is Shed.

All Love Is Sweet, Given Or Received.

Human Vanity Is So Constituted That It Stiffens Before Difficulties. The More An Object Conceals Itself From Our Eyes, The Greater The Effort We Make To Seize It, Because It Pricks Our Pride, It Excites Our Curiosity And It Appears Interesting. In Fighting For His God Everyone, In Fact, Fights Only For The Interest Of His Own Vanity, Which, Of All The Passions Produced Bye The Mal-organization Of Society, Is The Quickest To Take Offense, And The Most Capable Of Committing The Greatest Follies.

The Everlasting Universe Of Things Flows Through The Mind, And Rolls Its Rapid Waves, Now Dark--now Glittering--now Reflecting Gloom-- Now Lending Splendour, Where From Secret Springs The Source Of Human Thought Its Tribute Brings.

Poetry Love's Philosophy The Fountains Mingle With The River And The Rivers With The Ocean, The Winds Of Heaven Mix For Ever With A Sweet Emotion; Nothing In The World Is Single, All Things By A Law Divine In One Another's Being Mingle— Why Not I With Thine? See The Mountains Kiss High Heaven, And The Waves Clasp One Another; No Sister-flower Would Be Forgiven If It Disdain'd Its Brother; And The Sunlight Clasps The Earth, And The Moonbeams Kiss The Sea— What Are All These Kissings Worth, If Thou Kiss Not Me?

At The Very Time That Philosophers Of The Most Enterprising Benevolence Were Founding In Greece Those Institutions Which Have Rendered It The Wonder And Luminary Of The World, Am I Required To Believe That The Weak And Wicked King Of An Obscure And Barbarous Nation, A Murderer, A Traitor And A Tyrant, Was The Man After God's Own Heart?

One Word Is Too Often Profaned For Me To Profane It, One Feeling Too Falsely Disdained For Thee To Disdain It.

Within My Heart Is The Lamp Of Love, And That Is Day!

Man's Yesterday May Never Be Like His Morrow; Nought May Endure But Mutability.

Religion! But For Thee, Prolific Fiend, Who Peoplest Earth With Demons, Hell With Men, And Heaven With Slaves!

Thou Demandest What Is Love? It Is That Powerful Attraction Towards All That We Conceive, Or Fear, Or Hope Beyond Ourselves, When We Find Within Our Own Thoughts The Chasm Of An Insufficient Void, And Seek To Awaken In All Things That Are, A Community With What We Experience Within Ourselves.

I Am Convinced That There Can Be No Regeneration Of Mankind Until Laughter Is Put Down.

Love's Very Pain Is Sweet

The Cloud Shadows Of Midnight Possess Their Own Repose.

Mild Is The Slow Necessity Of Death; The Tranquil Spirit Fails Beneath Its Grasp, Without A Groan, Almost Without A Fear, Resigned In Peace To The Necessity; Calm As A Voyager To Some Distant Land, And Full Of Wonder, Full Of Hope As He.

And The Rose Like A Nymph To The Bath Addrest, Which Unveiled The Depth Of Her Glowing Breast, Till, Fold After Fold, To The Fainting Air, The Soul Of Her Beauty And Love Lay Bare.

I Arise From Dreams Of Thee, And A Spirit In My Feet Has Led Me- Who Knows How? To Thy Chamber-window, Sweet!

The Howl Of Self-interest Is Loud ... But The Heart Is Black Which Throbs Solely To Its Note.

Life And The World, Or Whatever We Call That Which We Are And Feel, Is An Astonishing Thing. The Mist Of Familiarity Obscures From Us The Wonder Of Our Being. We Are Struck With Admiration At Some Of Its Transient Modifications, But It Is Itself The Great Miracle.

The Rich Have Become Richer, And The Poor Have Become Poorer; And The Vessel Of The State Is Driven Between The Scylla And Charybdis Of Anarchy And Despotism.

I Know The Cause Of All Human Disappointment -- Worldly Prejudice.

Man, Who Wert Once A Despot And A Slave, A Dupe And A Deceiver! A Decay, A Traveller From The Cradle To The Grave Through The Dim Night Of This Immortal Day.

Let There Be Light! Said Liberty , And Like Sunrise From The Sea, Athens Arose!

The Pleasure That Is In Sorrow Is Sweeter Than The Pleasure Of Pleasure Itself.

This, And No Other, Is Justice: To Consider, Under All The Circumstances And Consequences Of A Particular Case, How The Greatest Quantity And Purest Quality Of Happiness Will Ensue From Any Action ... There Is No Other Justice.

True Love In This Differs From Gold And Clay, That To Divide Is Not To Take Away. Love Is Like Understanding, That Grows Bright, Gazing On Many Truths; 'tis Like Thy Light, Imagination! Which From Earth And Sky, And From The Depths Of Human Phantasy, As From A Thousand Prisms And Mirrors, Fills The Universe With Glorious Beams, And Kills Error, The Worm, With Many A Sun-like Arrow Of Its Reverberated Lightning.

The Splendors Of The Firmament Of Time May Be Eclipsed, But Are Extinguished Not; Like Stars To Their Appointed Height They Climb And Death Is A Low Mist Which Cannot Blot The Brightness It May Veil.

It Is Not A Merit To Tolerate, But Rather A Crime To Be Intolerant.

My Name Is Ozymandias, King Of Kings: Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair!

The Awful Shadow Of Some Unseen Power Floats, Tho' Unseen, Amongst Us.

The Young Moon Has Fed Her Exhausted Horn With The Sunset's Fire.

You Would Not Easily Guess All The Modes Of Distress Which Torture The Tenants Of Earth; And The Various Evils, Which Like So Many Devils, Attend The Poor Souls From Their Birth.

Concerning God, Freewill And Destiny: Of All That Earth Has Been Or Yet May Be, All That Vain Men Imagine Or Believe, Or Hope Can Paint Or Suffering May Achieve, We Descanted.

The Awful Shadow Of Some Unseen Power Floats Though Unseen Among Us; Visiting This Various World With As Inconstant Wing As Summer Winds That Creep From Flower To Flower; Like Moonbeams That Behind Some Piny Mountain Shower, It Visits With Inconstant Glance Each Human Heart And Countenance; Like Hues And Harmonies Of Evening, Like Clouds In Starlight Widely Spread, Like Memory Of Music Fled, Like Aught That For Its Grace May Be Dear, And Yet Dearer For Its Mystery.

I Am The Daughter Of Earth And Water, And The Nursling Of The Sky; I Pass Through The Pores Of The Ocean And Shores; I Change, But I Cannot Die. For After The Rain When With Never A Stain The Pavilion Of Heaven Is Bare, And The Winds And Sunbeams With Their Convex Gleams Build Up The Blue Dome Of Air, I Silently Laugh At My Own Cenotaph, And Out Of The Caverns Of Rain, Like A Child From The Womb, Like A Ghost From The Tomb, I Arise And Unbuild It Again.

I Consider Poetry Very Subordinate To Moral And Political Science.

Are We Not Formed, As Notes Of Music Are, For One Another, Though Dissimilar?

I Stood Within The City Disinterred; And Heard The Autumnal Leaves Like Light Footfalls Of Spirits Passng Through The Streets; And Heard The Mountain's Slumberous Voice At Intervals Thrill Through Those Roofless Halls; The Oracular Thunder Penetrating Shook The Listening Soul In My Suspended Blood.

Worlds On Worlds Are Rolling Ever From Creation To Decay, Like The Bubbles On A River Sparkling, Bursting, Borne Away.

There Is No God. This Negation Must Be Understood Solely To Affect A Creative Deity. The Hypothesis Of A Pervading Spirit Co-eternal With The Universe Remains Unshaken.

The Most Refined Abstractions Of Logic Conduct To A View Of Life, Which, Though Startling To The Apprehension, Is, In Fact, That Which The Habitual Sense Of Its Repeated Combinations Has Extinguished In Us. It Strips, As It Were, The Painted Curtain From This Scene Of Things. I Confess That I Am One Of Those Who Are Unable To Refuse My Assent To The Conclusions Of Those Philosophers Who Assert That Nothing Exists But As It Is Perceived.

Power, Like A Desolating Pestilence, Pollutes Whate'er It Touches; And Obedience, Bane Of All Genius, Virtue, Freedom, Truth, Makes Slaves Of Men, And Of The Human Frame A Mechanized Automaton.

Thy Words Are Like A Cloud Of Winged Snakes.

Near That A Dusty Paint-box, Some Odd Hooks, A Half-burnt Match, An Ivory Block, Three Books, Where Conic Sections, Spherics, Logarithms, To Great Laplace, From Saunderson And Sims, Lie Heaped In Their Harmonious Disarray Of Figures,-disentangle Them Who May.

I Love Love -- Though He Has Wings, And Like Light Can Flee.

You Ought To Love All Mankind; Nay, Every Individual Of Mankind. You Ought Not To Love The Individuals Of Your Domestic Circles Less, But To Love Those Who Exist Beyond It More.

Music, When Soft Voices Die, Vibrates In The Memory; Odours, When Sweet Violets Sicken, Live Within The Sense They Quicken. Rose Leaves, When The Rose Is Dead, Are Heap'd For The Belovèd's Bed; And So Thy Thoughts, When Thou Art Gone, Love Itself Shall Slumber On.

Just A Tender Sense Of My Own Process, That Holds Something Of My Connection With The Divine.

O Cease! Must Hate And Death Return, Cease! Must Men Kill And Die? Cease! Drain Not To Its Dregs The Urn Of Bitter Prophecy. The World Is Weary Of The Past, Oh, Might It Die Or Rest At Last!

Thou Shoreless Flood, Which In Thy Ebb And Flow Claspest The Limits Of Mortality.

The Nature Of A Narrow And Malevolent Spirit Is So Essentially Incompatible With Happiness As To Render It Inaccessible To The Influences Of The Benignant God.

As Belief Is A Passion Of The Mind, No Degree Of Criminality Is Attachable To Disbelief.

Sounds Of Vernal Showers On The Twinkling Grass, Rain Awaken'd Flowers, All That Ever Was Joyous, And Clear, And Fresh, Thy Music Doth Surpass

... Virtue Owns A More Eternal Foe Than Force Or Fraud: Old Custom, Legal Crime, And Bloody Faith The Foulest Birth Of Time.

Obedience Indeed Is Only The Pitiful And Cowardly Egotism Of Him Who Thinks That He Can Do Something Better Than Reason.

Image Of Rugged Cliffs And So Thy Thoughts, When Thou Art Gone, Love Itself Shall Slumber On.

To Hope Till Hope Creates From Its Own Wreck The Thing It Contemplates.

Drive My Dead Thoughts Over The Universe Like Withered Leaves To Quicken A New Birth! And, By The Incantation Of This Verse, Scatter, As From An Unextinguished Hearth Ashes And Sparks, My Words Among Mankind! Be Through My Lips To Unawakened Earth The Trumpet Of A Prophecy! O, Wind, If Winter Comes, Can Spring Be Far Behind?

Spirit Of Beauty, That Dost Consecrate With Thine Own Hues All Thou Dost Shine Upon Of Human Thought Or Form, Where Art Thou Gone? Why Dost Thou Pass Away And Leave Our State, This Dim Vast Vale Of Tears, Vacant And Desolate? Ask Why The Sunlight Not For Ever Weaves Rainbows O'er Yon Mountain-river, Why Aught Should Fail And Fade That Once Is Shown, Why Fear And Dream And Death And Birth Cast On The Daylight Of This Earth Such Gloom, Why Man Has Such A Scope For Love And Hate, Despondency And Hope?

The Cloud Of Mind Is Discharging Its Collected Lightning.

When A Thing Is Said To Be Not Worth Refuting You May Be Sure That Either It Is Flagrantly Stupid - In Which Case All Comment Is Superfluous - Or It Is Something Formidable, The Very Crux Of The Problem.

Woe Is Me! The Winged Words On Which My Soul Would Pierce Into The Heights Of Love's Rare Universe, Are Chains Of Lead Around Its Flight Of Fire-- I Pant, I Sink, I Tremble, I Expire.

Life May Change, But It May Fly Not; Hope May Vanish, But Can Die Not; Truth Be Veiled, But Still It Burneth; Love Repulsed, - But It Returneth!

Ere Babylon Was Dust, The Magus Zoroaster, My Dead Child, Met His Own Image Walking In The Garden, That Apparition, Sole Of Men, He Saw.

Sow Seed--but Let No Tyrant Reap; Find Wealth--let No Imposter Heap; Weave Robes--let Not The Idle Wear; Forge Arms--in Your Defence To Bear.

The Crime Of Inquiry Is One Which Religion Never Has Forgiven.

The Discussion Of Any Subject Is A Right That You Have Brought Into The World With Your Heart And Tongue. Resign Your Heart's Blood Before You Part With This Inestimable Privilege Of Man.

Only Nature Knows How To Justly Proportion To The Fault The Punishment It Deserves.

A Lovely Lady, Garmented In Light From Her Own Beauty.

To Suffer Woes Which Hope Thinks Infinite; To Forgive Wrongs Darker Than Death Or Night; To Defy Power, Which Seems Omnipotent; To Love, And Bear; To Hope Till Hope Creates From It's Own Wreck The Thing It Contemplates; Neither To Change, Not Falter, Nor Repent; This, Like Thy Glory, Titan, Is To Be Good, Great And Joyous,beautiful And Free; This Is Alone Life, Joy, Empire, And Victory

Think Ye By Gazing On Each Other's Eyes To Multiply Your Lovely Selves?

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