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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.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

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In Each Human Heart

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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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.

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If Certain Critics Were As Clearsighted As They Are Malignant, How Great Would Be The Benefit To Be Derived From Their Writings!

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?

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

[l]ike Thee To Those In Sorrow, Comes To Bid A Sweet Good-morrow To The Rough Year Just Awake In Its Cradle On The Brake. The Brightest Hour Of Unborn Spring, Through The Winter Wandering, Found, It Seems, The Halcyon Morn To Hoar February Born.

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.

Every Fanatic Or Enemy Of Virtue Is Not At Liberty To Misrepresent The Greatest Geniuses And Most Heroic Defenders Of All That Is Valuable In This Mortal World.

I Wish No Living Thing To Suffer Pain.

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!

The Breath Of Accusation Kills An Innocent Name, And Leaves For Lame Acquittal The Poor Life, Which Is A Mask Without It.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

It Is True That The Reluctance To Abstain From Animal Food, In Those Who Have Been Long Accustomed To Its Stimulus, Is So Great In Some Persons Of Weak Minds, As To Be Scarcely Overcome; But This Is Far From Bringing Any Argument In Its Favour

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.

To Be Omnipotent But Friendless Is To Reign.

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

The Man Of Virtuous Soul Commands Not, Nor Obeys.

I Have Made My Bed In Charnels And On Coffins, Where Black Death Keeps Record Of The Trophies Won

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

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

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

My Father Time Is Weak And Gray With Waiting For A Better Day; See How Idiot-like He Stands, Fumbling With His Palsied Hands!

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.

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

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

So Soon As This Want Or Power [of Love] Is Dead, Man Becomes The Living Sepulchre Of Himself, And What Yet Survives Is The Mere Husk Of What Once He Was.

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

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

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

The Thoughts Which The Word "god" Suggests To The Human Mind Are Susceptible Of As Many Variations As Human Minds Themselves.

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.

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

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

February... Bending From Heaven, In Azure Mirth, It Kissed The Forehead Of The Earth, And Smiled Upon The Silent Sea, And Bade The Frozen Streams Be Free, And Waked To Music All Their Fountains, And Breathed Upon The Frozen Mountains.

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

Among True And Real Friends, All Is Common; And Were Ignorance And Envy And Superstition Banished From The World, All Mankind Would Be Friend.

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.

When Merciless Ambition, Or Mad Zeal, Has Led Two Hosts Of Dupes To Battlefield, That, Blind, They There May Dig Each Other's Graves, And Call The Sad Work Glory.

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.

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 Pant, I Sink, I Tremble, I Expire!

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.

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.

By All That Is Sacred In Our Hope For The Human Race, I Conjure Those Who Love Happiness And Truth To Give A Fair Trial To The Vegetable System!

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

What Is Love? It Is That Powerful Attraction Towards All That We Conceive, Or Fear, Or Hope Beyond Ourselves.

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.

God Is A Hypothesis, And, As Such, Stands In Need Of Proof; The Onus Probandi Rests On The Theist.

A Pard-like Spirit, Beautiful And Swift.

I Fall Upon The Thorns Of Life.

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.

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

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

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.

I See The Waves Upon The Shore, Like Light Dissolved In Star-showers, Thrown.

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.

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!

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!

But Hope Will Make Thee Young, For Hope And Youth Are Children Of One Mother, Even Love.

And Many An Ante-natal Tomb Where Butterflies Dream Of The Life To Come.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Revenge Is The Naked Idol Of The Worship Of A Semi-barbarous Age.

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.

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.

I Have Neither Curiosity, Interest, Pain Nor Pleasure, In Anything, Good Or Evil, They Can Say Of Me. I Feel Only A Slight Disgust, And A Sort Of Wonder That They Presume To Write My Name.

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

Death Is The Veil Which Those Who Live Call Life; They Sleep, And It Is Lifted.

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.

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

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.

Teas, Where Small Talk Dies In Agonies.

It Is Vain Philosophy That Supposes More Causes Than Are Exactly Adequate To Explain The Phenomena Of Things.

As I Lay Asleep In Italy There Came A Voice From Over The Sea, And With Great Power It Forth Led Me To Walk In The Visions Of Poesy.

A Poet Is A Nightingale, Who Sits In Darkness And Sings To Cheer Its Own Solitude With Sweet Sounds; His Auditors Are As Men Entranced By The Melody Of An Unseen Musician, Who Feel That They Are Moved And Softened, Yet Know Not Whence Or Why.

Lie Bills And Calculations Much Perplexed, With Steam-boats, Frigates, And Machinery Quaint Traced Over Them In Blue And Yellow Paint.

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

The Encomium Of One Incapable Of Flattery Is Indeed Flattering.

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.

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.

Soul Meets Soul On Lovers' Lips.

I Am Gone Into The Fields To Take What This Sweet Hour Yields; Reflection, You May Come To-morrow, Sit By The Fireside With Sorrow. You With The Unpaid Bill, Despair, You, Tiresome Verse-reciter, Care, I Will Pay You In The Grave, Death Will Listen To Your Stave.

Alas! I Have Nor Hope Nor Health, Nor Peace Within Nor Calm Around, Nor That Content Surpassing Wealth The Sage In Meditation Found.

Dust To The Dust! But The Pure Spirit Shall Flow Back To The Burning Fountain Whence It Came, A Portion Of The Eternal.

But I Am Chained To Time, And Cannot Thence Depart!

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.

So Is Hope Changed For Despair-one Laid Upon The Shelf, We Take The Other. Under Heaven's High Cope Fortune Is God-all You Endure And Do Depends On Circumstance As Much As You.

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

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.

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

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.

Be Your Strong And Simple Words Keen To Wound As Sharpened Swords, And Wide As Targes Let Them Be, With Their Shade To Cover Ye.

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

Fame, Power, And Gold, Are Loved For Their Own Sakes - Are Worshipped With A Blind, Habitual Idolatry.

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

The Warm Sun Is Failing, The Bleak Wind Is Wailing, The Bare Boughs Are Sighing, The Pale Flowers Are Dying, And The Year On The Earth Her Death-bed, In A Shroud Of Leaves Dead, Is Lying. . . .

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Love's Very Pain Is Sweet, But Its Reward Is In The World Divine Which, If Not Here, It Builds Beyond The Grave.

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.

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

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.

For Love And Beauty And Delight, There Is No Death Nor Change.

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

Hail To Thee, Blithe Spirit!

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.

Poetry Is A Mirror Which Makes Beautiful That Which Is Distorted.

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

Rough Wind, The Moanest Loud Grief Too Sad For Song; Wild Wind, When Sullen Cloud Knells All The Night Long; Sad Storm, Whose Tears Are Vain, Bare Woods, Whose Branches Strain, Deep Caves And Dreary Main, Wail, For The World's Wrong!

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?

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.

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?

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.

The Soul's Joy Lies In Doing.

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

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.

I Think That The Leaf Of A Tree, The Meanest Insect On Which We Trample, Are In Themselves Arguments More Conclusive Than Any Which Can Be Adduced That Some Vast Intellect Animates Infinity.

He Has Outsoared The Shadow Of Our Night; Envy And Calumny And Hate And Pain, And That Unrest Which Men Miscall Delight, Can Touch Him Not And Torture Not Again; From The Contagion Of The World's Slow Stain, He Is Secure.

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

It Is A Modest Creed, And Yet Pleasant If One Considers It, To Own That Death Itself Must Be, Like All The Rest, A Mockery.

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

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.

Yes, Marriage Is Hateful, Detestable. A Kind Of Ineffable, Sickening Disgust Seizes My Mind When I Think Of This Most Despotic, Most Unrequited Fetter Which Prejudice Has Forged To Confine Its Energies.

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

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?

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.

Thou Paradise Of Exiles, Italy!

In The Golden Lightning Of The Sunken Sun O'er Which Clouds Are Brightening, Thou Dost Float And Run Like An Unbodied Joy Whose Race Is Just Begun.

Poet's Food Is Love And Fame.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Poetry Strengthens That Faculty Which Is The Organ Of The Moral Nature Of Man, In The Same Manner As Exercise Strengthens A Limb.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

We Are All Greeks. Our Laws, Our Literature, Our Religion, Our Arts, Have Their Root In Greece.

Poets Are The Hierophants Of An Unapprehended Inspiration; The Mirrors Of The Gigantic Shadows Which Futurity Casts Upon The Present; The Words Which Express What They Understand Not; The Trumpets Which Sing To Battle, And Feel Not What They Inspire; The Influence Which Is Moved Not, But Moves. Poets Are The Unacknowledged Legislators Of The World.

Our Adonais Has Drunk Poisonoh! What Deaf And Viperous Murderer Could Crown Life's Early Cup With Such A Draught Of Woe?

The Jealous Keys Of Truth's Eternal Doors.

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

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

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

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.

The Cloud Shadows Of Midnight Possess Their Own Repose.

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

Ah! What A Divine Religion Might Be Found Out If Charity Were Really Made The Principle Of It Instead Of Faith.

Jealousy's Eyes Are Green.

What! Alive, And So Bold, O Earth?

A Poet, As He Is The Author To Others Of The Highest Wisdom, Pleasure, Virtue, And Glory, So He Ought Personally To Be The Happiest, The Best, The Wisest, And The Most Illustrious Of Men.

The Moon Of Mahomet Arose, And It Shall Set; While, Blazoned As On Heaven's Immortal Noon, The Cross Leads Generations On.

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

Underneath Day's Azure Eyes, Ocean's Nursling, Venice Lies, A Peopled Labyrinth Of Walls, Amphitrite's Destined Halls

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

Sometimes The Devil Is A Gentleman.

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.

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

Self Improvement

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.'

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

The Pale Stars Are Gone! For The Sun, Their Swift Shepherd, To Their Folds Them Compelling, In The Depths Of The Dawn, Hastes, In Meteor-eclipsing Array, And The Flee Beyond His Blue Dwelling, As Fawns Flee The Leopard.

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.

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.

Rise Like Lions After Slumber In Unvanquishable Number- Shake Your Chains To Earth Like Dew Which In Sleep Had Fallen On You Ye Are Many-they Are Few.

A Single Word Even May Be A Spark Of Inextinguishable Thought

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.

I Arise From Dreams Of Thee In The First Sweet Sleep Of Night, When The Winds Are Breathing Low, And The Stars Are Shining Bright.

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

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Charles Horton Cooley

Jon Huntsman, Jr.

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