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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.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Love, From Its Awful

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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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.

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Persevere Even Though Hell And Destruction Should Yawn Beneath Your Feet.

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

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.

When A Man Marries, Dies, Or Turns Hindu, His Best Friends Hear No More Of Him.

This Lake Exceeds Anything I Ever Beheld In Beauty.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

When The Power Of Imparting Joy Is Equal To The Will, The Human Soul Requires No Other Heaven.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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.

Lost Echo Sits Amid The Voiceless Mountains, And Feeds Her Grief.

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

Nought May Endure But Mutability.

Government Is An Evil; It Is Only The Thoughtlessness And Vices Of Men That Make It A Necessary Evil. When All Men Are Good And Wise, Government Will Of Itself Decay.

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.

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.

Our Sweetest Songs Are Those That Tell Of Saddest Thought.

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

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

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.

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!

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.

I Love All Waste And Solitary Places.

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

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.

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

Let Me Set My Mournful Ditty To A Merry Measure; Thou Wilt Never Come For Pity, Thou Wilt Come For Pleasure; Pity Then Will Cut Away Those Cruel Wings, And Thou Wilt Stay.

Cold Hopes Swarm Like Worms Within Our Living Clay.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I Wish No Living Thing To Suffer Pain.

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

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!

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

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

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!

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

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

The Mind In Creation Is As A Fading Coal, Which Some Invisible Influence, Like An Inconstant Wind, Awakens To Transitory Brightness; This Power Arises From Within...could This Influence Be Durable In Its Original Purity And Force, It Is Impossible To Predict The Greatness Of The Result; But When Composition Begins, Inspiration Is Already On The Decline; And The Most Glorious Poetry That Has Been Communicated To The World Is Probably A Feeble Shadow Of The Original Conceptions Of The Poet.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

How Wonderful Is Death! Death And His Brother Sleep.

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

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.

A System Could Not Well Have Been Devised More Studiously Hostile To Human Happiness Than Marriage.

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.

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.

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.

...what Are Numbers Knit By Force Or Custom? Man Who Man Would Be, Must Rule The Empire Of Himself; In It Must Be Supreme, Establishing His Throne On Vanquished Will, Quelling The Anarchy Of Hopes And Fears, Being Himself Alone.

Commerce Has Set The Mark Of Selfishness, The Signet Of Its All-enslaving Power, Upon A Shining Ore, And Called It Gold: Before Whose Image Bow The Vulgar Great, The Vainly Rich, The Miserable Proud, The Mob Of Peasants, Nobles, Priests, And Kings, And With Blind Feelings Reverence The Power That Grinds Them To The Dust Of Misery.

All Love Is Sweet, Given Or Received.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

"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.

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

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

A Husband And Wife Ought To Continue United So Long As They Love Each Other. Any Law Which Should Bind Them To Cohabitation For One Moment After The Decay Of Their Affection Would Be A Most Intolerable Tyranny, And The Most Unworthy Of Toleration.

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.

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.

That Sweet Sleep Which Medicines All Pain.

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

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

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.

I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy.

The Great Instrument Of Moral Good Is The Imagination.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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

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

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

Strange Thoughts Beget Strange Deeds.

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

To Be Omnipotent But Friendless Is To Reign.

... 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

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

Those Who Inflict Must Suffer, For They See The Work Of Their Own Hearts, And This Must Be Our Chastisement Or Recompense.

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

What! Alive, And So Bold, O Earth?

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.

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.

O Wild West Wind, Thou Breath Of Autumn's Being. Thou, From Whose Unseen Presence The Leaves Dead Are Driven, Like Ghosts From An Enchanter Fleeing.

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 Great Community Of Mankind Had Been Subdivided Into Ten Thousand Communities, Each Organized For The Ruin Of The Other.

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

Familiar Acts Are Beautiful Through Love.

There Are Two Italies.... The One Is The Most Sublime And Lovely Contemplation That Can Be Conceived By The Imagination Of Man; The Other Is The Most Degraded, Disgusting, And Odious. What Do You Think? Young Women Of Rank Actually Eat - You Will Never Guess What - Garlick! Our Poor Friend Lord Byron Is Quite Corrupted By Living Among These People, And In Fact, Is Going On In A Way Not Worthy Of Him.

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.

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

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.

Design Must Be Proved Before A Designer Can Be Inferred.

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

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

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.

A Pard-like Spirit, Beautiful And Swift.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Men Must Reap The Things They Sow, Force From Force Must Ever Flow.

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

Self Improvement

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

Chastity Is A Monkish And Evangelical Superstition, A Greater Foe To Natural Temperance Even Than Unintellectual Sensuality; It Strikes At The Root Of All Domestic Happiness, And Consigns More Than Half Of The Human Race To Misery.

A Dream Has Power To Poison Sleep.

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

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

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

For The Sensitive Plant Has No Bright Flower; Radiance And Odour Are Not Its Dower; It Loves, Even Like Love, Its Deep Heart Is Full, It Desires What It Has Not, The Beautiful.

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.

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.

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

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

No More Let Life Divide What Death Can Join Together.

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 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

The Cloud Shadows Of Midnight Possess Their Own Repose.

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

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

Hail To Thee, Blithe Spirit!

Christianity Indeed Has Equaled Judaism In The Atrocities, And Exceeded It In The Extent Of Its Desolation. Eleven Millions Of Men, Women, And Children Have Been Killed In Battle, Butchered In Their Sleep, Burned To Death At Public Festivals Of Sacrifice, Poisoned, Tortured, Assassinated, And Pillaged In The Spirit Of The Religion Of Peace, And For The Glory Of The Most Merciful God.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Fear Not For The Future, Weep Not For The Past.

In Fact, Truth Cannot Be Communicated Until It Is Perceived.

I Consider Poetry Very Subordinate To Moral And Political Science.

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

His Fine Wit Makes Such A Wound, The Knife Is Lost In It.

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.

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.

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

The Jealous Keys Of Truth's Eternal Doors.

Worse Than A Bloody Hand Is A Hard Heart.

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

Most Wretched Men Are Cradled Into Poetry By Wrong: They Learn In Suffering What They Teach In Song.

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!

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

It Is Our Will That Thus Enchains Us To Permitted Ill. We Might Be Otherwise, We Might Be All We Dream Of Happy, High, Majestical. Where Is The Love, Beauty And Truth We Seek, But In Our Mind? And If We Were Not Weak, Should We Be Less In Deed Than In Desire?

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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J. R. Moehringer

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