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If He Is Infinitely Good, What Reason Should We Have To Fear Him? If He Is Infinitely Wise, What Doubts Should We Have Concerning Our Future? If He Knows All, Why Warn Him Of Our Needs And Fatigue Him With Our Prayers? If He Is Everywhere, Why Erect Temples To Him? If He Is Just, Why Fear That He Will Punish The Creatures That He Has Filled With Weaknesses?

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

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If He Is Infinitely

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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If He Is Infinitely Good, What Reason Should We Have To Fear Him? If He Is Infinitely Wise, What Doubts Should We Have Concerning Our Future? If He Knows All, Why Warn Him Of Our Needs And Fatigue Him With Our Prayers? If He Is Everywhere, Why Erect Temples To Him? If He Is Just, Why Fear That He Will Punish The Creatures That He Has Filled With Weaknesses?

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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.

In The Firm Expectation That When London Shall Be A Habitation Of Bitterns, When St. Paul And Westminster Abbey Shall Stand Shapeless And Nameless Ruins In The Midst Of An Unpeopled Marsh, When The Piers Of Waterloo Bridge Shall Become The Nuclei Of Islets Of Reeds And Osiers, And Cast The Jagged Shadows Of Their Broken Arches On The Solitary Stream, Some Transatlantic Commentator Will Be Weighing In The Scales Of Some New And Now Unimagined System Of Criticism The Respective Merits Of The Bells And The Fudges And Their Historians.

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.

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.'

Poet's Food Is Love And Fame.

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

Till The Future Dares Forget The Past, His Fate And Fame Shall Be An Echo And A Light Unto Eternity!

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.

He Hath Awakened From The Dream Of Life.

"blessed Are The Pure In Heart, For They Shall See God." Blessed Are Those Who Have Preserved Internal Sanctity Of Soul; Who Are Conscious Of No Secret Deceit; Who Are The Same In Act As They Are In Desire; Who Conceal No Thought, No Tendencies Of Thought, From Their Own Conscience; Who Are Faithful And Sincere Witnesses, Before The Tribunal Of Their Own Judgments, Of All That Passes Within Their Mind. Such As These Shall See God.

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 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.

Jealousy's Eyes Are Green.

Poets, Not Otherwise Than Philosophers, Painters, Sculptors, And Musicians, Are, In One Sense, The Creators, And, In Another, The Creations, Of Their Age.

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

There Is No Real Wealth But The Labour Of Man. Were The Mountains Of Gold And The Valleys Of Silver, The World Would Not Be One Grain Of Corn The Richer; No One Comfort Would Be Added To The Human Race.

I Consider Poetry Very Subordinate To Moral And Political Science.

For This Is The Most Civil Sort Of Lie That Can Be Given To A Man's Face. I Now Say What I Think.

Nought May Endure But Mutability.

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

O Weep For Adonis - He Is Dead." "peace. He Is Not Dead He Doth Not Sleep - He Hath Wakened From The Dream Of Life

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

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

There Is No Sport In Hate Where All The Rage Is On One Side.

Love, From Its Awful Throne Of Patient Power In The Wise Heart, From The Last Giddy Hour Of Dread Endurance, From The Slippery, Steep, And Narrow Verge Of Crag-like Agony, Springs And Folds Over The World Its Healing Wings.

The Great Secret Of Morals Is Love; Or A Going Out Of Our Nature, And An Identification Of Ourselves With The Beautiful Which Exists In Thought, Action, Or Person, Not Our Own. A Man, To Be Greatly Good, Must Imagine Intensely And Comprehensively; He Must Put Himself In The Place Of Another And Of Many Others; The Pains And Pleasure Of His Species Must Become His Own. The Great Instrument Of Moral Good Is The Imagination.

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.

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

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.

A God Made By Man Undoubtedly Has Need Of Man To Make Himself Known To Man.

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.

Many A Green Isle Needs Must Be In The Deep Wide Sea Of Misery, Or The Mariner, Worn And Wan, Never Thus Could Voyage On.

The More We Study The More We Discover Our Ignorance.

There Is No Real Wealth But The Labour Of Man.

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.

Death Will Come When Thou Art Dead, Soon, Too Soon.

I Know The Past And Thence I Will Essay To Glean A Warning For The Future, So That Man May Profit By His Errors, And Derive Experience From His Folly; For, When The Power Of Imparting Joy Is Equal To The Will, The Human Soul Requires No Other Heaven.

Oh Lift Me As A Wave, A Leaf, A Cloud! I Fall Upon The Thorns Of Life! I Bleed!

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

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.

All Spirits Are Enslaved Which Serve Things Evil

Positive Atheism

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.

Sometimes The Devil Is A Gentleman.

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

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.

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.

Far Clouds Of Feathery Gold, Shaded With Deepest Purple, Gleam Like Islands On A Dark Blue Sea.

I Am Not Much Of A Hand At Love Songs, You See I Mingle Metaphysics With Even This, But Perhaps In This Age Of Philosophy That May Be Excused.

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

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.

O Heart, And Mind, And Thoughts! What Thing Do You Hope To Inherit In The Grave Below?

I Love Tranquil Solitude.

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.

But Greece And Her Foundations Are Built Below The Tide Of War, Based On The Crystalline Sea Of Thought And Its Eternity; Her Citizens, Imperial Spirits, Rule The Present From The Past, On All This World Of Men Inherits Their Seal Is Set.

Worse Than A Bloody Hand Is A Hard Heart.

Peace, Peace! He Is Not Dead, He Doth Not Sleep - He Hath Awakened From The Dream Of Life - 'tis We, Who Lost In Stormy Visions, Keep With Phantoms An Unprofitable Strife.

...ere Midnight’s Frown And Morning’s Smile, Ere Thou And Peace May Meet.

The Man Of Virtuous Soul Commands Not, Nor Obeys.

Nothing Of Him That Doth Fade But Doth Suffer A Sea-change Into Something Rich And Strange

The Old Laws Of England They Whose Reverend Heads With Age Are Gray, Children Of A Wiser Day; And Whose Solemn Voice Must Be Thine Own Echo Liberty!

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

Self Improvement

The Cemetery Is An Open Space Among The Ruins, Covered In Winter With Violets And Daisies. It Might Make One In Love With Death, To Think That One Should Be Buried In So Sweet A Place.

Mont Blanc Yet Gleams On High: The Power Is There, The Still And Solemn Power Of Many Sights And Many Sounds, And Much Of Life And Death. In The Long Glare Of Day, The Snows Descend Upon That Mountain; None Beholds Them There, Nor When The Flakes Burn In The Sinking Sun, Or The Sunbeams Dart Through Them.

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

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.

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

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.

The Cloud Of Mind Is Discharging Its Collected Lightning.

This Is Heaven, When Pain And Evil Cease, And When The Benignant Principle, Untrammelled And Uncontrolled, Visits In The Fulness Of Its Power The Universal Frame Of Things.

Poetry Is The Record Of The Best And Happiest Moments Of The Happiest And Best Minds.

You Are Now In London, That Great Sea, Whose Ebb And Flow At Once Is Deaf And Loud, And On The Shore Vomits Its Wrecks, And Still Howls On For More. Yet In Its Depth What Treasures!

A Dream Has Power To Poison Sleep.

Duty And Dereliction Guide Thee Back To Solitude.

And Priests Dare Babble Of A God Of Peace, Even Whilst Their Hands Are Red With Guiltless Blood, Murdering The While, Uprooting Every Germ Of Truth, Exterminating, Spoiling All, Making The Earth A Slaughter - House!

Nature Rejects The Monarch, Not The Man; The Subject, Not The Citizen... The Man Of Virtuous Soul Commands Not, Nor Obeys.

Thou Who Didst Waken From His Summer Dreams The Blue Mediterranean, Where He Lay, Lull'd By The Coil Of His Crystalline Streams Beside A Pumice Isle In Baiæ's Bay, And Saw In Sleep Old Palaces And Towers Quivering Within The Wave's Intenser Day, All Overgrown With Azure Moss And Flowers So Sweet, The Sense Faints Picturing Them.

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

Sometimes It's Better To Put Love Into Hugs Than To Put It Into Words. Soul Meets Soul On Lovers' Lips.

Nothing Wilts Faster Than Laurels That Have Been Rested Upon.

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

Is It Not Odd That The Only Generous Person I Ever Knew, Who Had Money To Be Generous With, Should Be A Stockbroker.

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

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.

Jesus Christ Represented God As The Principle Of All Good, The Source Of All Happiness, The Wise And Benevolent Creator And Preserver Of All Living Things. But The Interpreters Of His Doctrines Have Confounded The Good And The Evil Principle.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, And Endurance, These Are The Seals Of That Most Firm Assurance Which Bars The Pit Over Destruction's Strength; And If, With Infirm Hand, Eternity, Mother Of Many Acts And Hours, Should Free The Serpent That Would Clasp Her With His Length; These Are The Spells By Which To Reassume An Empire O'er The Disentangled Doom.

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

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.

Soul Meets Soul On Lovers' Lips.

The Jealous Keys Of Truth's Eternal Doors.

Our Sweetest Songs Are Those That Tell Of Saddest Thought.

I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy.

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.

Government Has No Rights; It Is A Delegation From Several Individuals For The Purpose Of Securing Their Own. It Is Therefore Just, Only So Far As It Exists By Their Consent, Useful Only So Far As It Operates To Their Well-being.

Honour Sits Smiling At The Sale Of Truth.

We Live And Move And Think; But We Are Not The Creators Of Our Own Origin And Existence. We Are Not The Arbiters Of Every Motion Of Our Own Complicated Nature; We Are Not The Masters Of Our Own Imaginations And Moods Of Mental Being.

Wild Spirit, Which Art Moving Everywhere; Destroyer And Preserver; Hear, Oh, Hear!

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

The Pilgrim Of Eternity, Whose Fame Over His Living Head Like Heaven Is Bent, An Early But Enduring Monument, Came, Veiling All The Lightnings Of His Song In Sorrow.

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

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

No Man Has A Right To Disturb The Public Peace, By Personally Resisting The Execution Of A Law However Bad. He Ought To Acquiesce, Using At The Same Time The Utmost Powers Of His Reason, To Promote Its Repeal.

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

When You Can Discover Where The Fresh Colors Of The Faded Flower Abide, Or The Music Of The Broken Lyre, Seek Life Among The Dead. Such Are The Anxious And Fearful Contemplations Of The Common Observer, Though The Popular Religion Often Prevents Him From Confessing Them Even To Himself.

It Were Much Better That A Sentient Being Should Never Have Existed, Than That It Should Have Existed Only To Endure Unmitigated Misery.

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.

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. From My Wings Are Shaken The Dews That Waken The Sweet Buds Every One, When Rocked To Rest On Their Mother's Breast, As She Dances About The Sun. 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.

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.

Teas, Where Small Talk Dies In Agonies.

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.

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

Belief Is Involuntary; Nothing Involuntary Is Meritorious Or Reprehensible. A Man Ought Not To Be Considered Worse Or Better For His Belief.

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.

Poetry Lifts The Veil From The Hidden Beauty Of The World, And Makes Familiar Objects Be As If They Were Not Familiar.

A Story Of Particular Facts Is A Mirror Which Obscures And Distorts That Which Should Be Beautiful; Poetry Is A Mirror Which Makes Beautiful That Which It Distorts.

I Cannot Endure The Horror, The Evil, Which Comes To Self In Solitude.

Worse Than Despair, Worse Than The Bitterness Of Death, Is Hope.

Unfathomable Sea! Whose Waves Are Years, Ocean Of Time, Whose Waters Of Deep Woe Are Brackish With The Salt Of Human Tears! Thou Shoreless Flood, Which In Thy Ebb And Flow Claspest The Limits Of Mortality! And Sick Of Prey, Yet Howling On For More, Vomitest Thy Wrecks On Its Inhospitable Shore, Treacherous In Calm, And Terrible In Storm, Who Shall Put Forth On Thee, Unfathomable Sea?

Thus Suicidal Selfishness, That Blights The Fairest Feelings Of The Opening Heart, Is Destined To Decay, Whilst From The Soil Shall Spring All Virtue, All Delight, All Love, And Judgment Cease To Wage Unnatural War With Passion's Unsubduable Array.

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

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.

What If English Toil And Blood Was Poured Forth, Even As A Flood? It Availed, Oh, Liberty, To Dim, But Not Extinguish Thee.

Heaven's Ebon Vault Studded With Stars Unutterably Bright, Through Which The Moon's Unclouded Grandeur Rolls, Seems Like A Canopy Which Love Has Spread To Curtain Her Sleeping World.

One Word Is Too Often Profaned For Me To Profane It, One Feeling Too Falsely Disdain'd For Thee To Disdain It. One Hope Too Like Dispair For Prudence To Smother, I Can Give Not What Men Call Love: But Wilt Thou Accept Not The Worship The Heart Lifts Above And Heaven Rejects Not: The Desire Of The Moth For The Star, The Devotion Of Something Afar From The Sphere Of Our Sorrow?

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!

The Intense Atom Glows A Moment, Then Is Quenched In A Most Cold Repose.

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.

The Desire Of The Moth For The Star, Of The Night For The Morrow, The Devotion To Something Afar From The Sphere Of Our Sorrow.

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

Strange Thoughts Beget Strange Deeds.

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.

That Orbed Maiden, With White Fire Laden, Whom Mortals Call The Moon.

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

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.

Music, When Soft Voices Die, Vibrates In The Memory; Odors, When Sweet Violets Sicken, Live Within The Sense They Quicken.

For There Are Deeds Which Have No Form, Sufferings Which Have No Tongue.

If He Is Infinitely Good, What Reason Should We Have To Fear Him? If He Is Infinitely Wise, What Doubts Should We Have Concerning Our Future? If He Knows All, Why Warn Him Of Our Needs And Fatigue Him With Our Prayers? If He Is Everywhere, Why Erect Temples To Him? If He Is Just, Why Fear That He Will Punish The Creatures That He Has Filled With Weaknesses?

Constancy Has Nothing Virtuous In Itself, Independently Of The Pleasure It Confers, And Partakes Of The Temporizing Spirit Of Vice In Proportion As It Endures Tamely Moral Defects Of Magnitude In The Object Of Its Indiscreet Choice.

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.

Dar'st Thou Amid The Varied Multitude To Live Alone, An Isolated Thing?

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?

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 Very Pain Is Sweet

Titles Are Tinsel, Power A Corrupter, Glorya Bubble, And Excessive Wealth A Libel On Its Possessor.

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

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

And Bid Them Love Each Other And Be Blest: And Leave The Troop Which Errs, And Which Reproves, And Come And Be My Guest, - For I Am Love's.

Love Each Other

Cold Hopes Swarm Like Worms Within Our Living Clay.

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

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

Peace Is In The Grave.

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

... 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

The Emptiness And Folly Of Retaliation Are Apparent From Every Example Which Can Be Brought Forward. Not Only Jesus Christ, But The Most Eminent Professors Of Every Sect Of Philosophy, Have Reasoned Against This Futile Superstition.

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.

Peace Is In The Grave. The Grave Hides All Things Beautiful And Good. I Am A God And Cannot Find It There, Nor Would I Seek It; For, Though Dread Revenge, This Is Defeat, Fierce King, Not Victory.

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.

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

Thou Art Justice Ne'er For Gold May Thy Righteous Laws Be Sold As Laws Are In England Thou Shield'st Alike The High And Low.

Had This Author [sir W Drummond Academical Questions, Chap. Iii.], Instead Of Inveighing Against The Guilt And Absurdity Of Atheism, Demonstrated Its Falsehood, His Conduct Would Have, Been More Suited To The Modesty Of The Skeptic And The Toleration Of The Philosopher.

This Lake Exceeds Anything I Ever Beheld In Beauty.

I Could Lie Down Like A Tired Child, And Weep Away The Life Of Care Which I Have Borne, And Yet Must Bear.

Jesus Christ Opposed With Earnest Eloquence The Panic Fears And Hateful Superstitions Which Have Enslaved Mankind For Ages.

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.

As Long As Skies Are Blue, And Fields Are Green Evening Must Usher Night, Night Urge The Morrow, Month Follow Month With Woe, And Year Wake Year To Sorrow

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.

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.

Poetry Is Not Like Reasoning, A Power To Be Exerted According To The Determination Of The Will. A Man Cannot Say, 'i Will Compose Poetry.' The Greatest Poet Even Cannot Say It; For The Mind In Creation Is As A Fading Coal, Which Some Invisible Influence, Like An Inconstant Wind, Awakens To Transitory Brightness...and The Conscious Portions Of Our Natures Are Unprophetic Either Of Its Approach Or Its Departure.

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.

Let The Blue Sky Overhead, The Green Earth On Which Ye Tread, All That Must Eternal Be Witness The Solemnity.

Power, Like A Desolating Pestilence, Pollutes Whatever It Touches.

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. Once Make The Feelings Of Confidence And Of Affection Universal, And The Distinctions Of Property And Power Will Vanish; Nor Are They To Be Abolished Without Substituting Something Equivalent In Mischief To Them, Until All Mankind Shall Acknowledge An Entire Community Of Rights.

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

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.

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

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.

Not The Swart Pariah In Some Indian Grove, Lone, Lean, And Hunted By His Brother's Hate, Hath Drunk So Deep The Cup Of Bitter Fate As That Poor Wretch Who Cannot, Cannot Love: He Bears A Load Which Nothing Can Remove, A Killing, Withering Weight.

I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy, And I Will Taste No Other Wine Tonight.

Their Errors Have Been Weighed And Found To Have Been Dust In The Balance; If Their Sins Were As Scarlet, They Are Now White As Snow: They Have Been Washed In The Blood Of The Mediator And The Redeemer, Time.

I Love Tranquil Solitude, And Such Society As Is Quiet, Wise, And Good; Between Thee And Me What Difference? But Thou Dost Possess The Things I Seek, Not Love Them Less.

There Is Eloquence In The Tongueless Wind, And A Melody In The Flowing Brooks And The Rustling Of The Reeds Beside Them, Which By Their Inconceivable Relation To Something Within The Soul, Awaken The Spirits To A Dance Of Breathless Rapture, And Bring Tears Of Mysterious Tenderness To The Eyes, Like The Enthusiasm Of Patriotic Success, Or The Voice Of One Beloved Singing To You Alone.

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.

The Beauty Of The Internal Nature Cannot Be So Far Concealed By Its Accidental Vesture, But That The Spirit Of Its Form Shall Communicate Itself To The Very Disguise And Indicate The Shape It Hides From The Manner In Which It Is Worn. A Majestic Form And Graceful Motions Will Express Themselves Through The Most Barbarous And Tasteless Costume.

Majestic Beauty

Fate,time,occasion,chance, And Change? To These All Things Are Subject But Eternal Love.

Age Cannot Love Destroy, But Perfidy Can Blast The Flower, Even When In Most Unwary Hour It Blooms In Fancy's Bower. Age Cannot Love Destroy, But Perfidy Can Rend The Shrine In Which Its Vermeil Splendours Shine.

Whatever Strengthens And Purifies The Affections, Enlarges The Imagination, And Adds Spirit To Sense, Is Useful.

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

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.

If All The Thought Which Had Been Expended On The Construction Of Engines Of Agony And Death - The Modes Of Aggression And Defence, The Raising Of Armies, And The Acquirement Of Those Arts Of Tyranny And Falsehood Without Which Mixed Multitudes Could Neither Be Led Nor Governed - Had Been Employed To Promote The True Welfare And Extend The Real Empire Of Man, How Different Would Have Been The Present Situation Of Human Society!

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

To Hearts Which Near Each Other Move From Evening Close To Morning Light,the Night Is Good; Because, My Love,they Never Say Good-night.

Chameleons Feed On Light And Air: Poets Food Is Love And Fame.

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.

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

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 Its Own Wreck The Thing It Contemplates; Neither To Change, Nor 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.

Hell Is A City Much Like London A Populous And Smoky City

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.

A Pard-like Spirit, Beautiful And Swift.

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

No More Let Life Divide What Death Can Join Together.

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