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Mankind, Transmitting From Generation To Generation The Legacy Of Accumulated Vengeances, And Pursuing With The Feelings Of Duty The Misery Of Their Fellow-beings, Have Not Failed To Attribute To The Universal Cause A Character Analogous With Their Own. The Image Of This Invisible, Mysterious Being Is More Or Less Excellent And Perfect Resembles More Or Less Its Original In Proportion To The Perfection Of The Mind On Which It Is Impressed.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Mankind, Transmitting From Generation

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Mankind, Transmitting From Generation To Generation The Legacy Of Accumulated Vengeances, And Pursuing With The Feelings Of Duty The Misery Of Their Fellow-beings, Have Not Failed To Attribute To The Universal Cause A Character Analogous With Their Own. The Image Of This Invisible, Mysterious Being Is More Or Less Excellent And Perfect Resembles More Or Less Its Original In Proportion To The Perfection Of The Mind On Which It Is Impressed.

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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.

The Cloud Shadows Of Midnight Possess Their Own Repose.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Thou Paradise Of Exiles, Italy!

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.

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.

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

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

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?

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

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

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

Joy, Once Lost, Is Pain

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

Poets Are The Hierophants Of An Unapprehended Inspiration; The Mirrors Of The Gigantic Shadows Which Futurity Casts Upon The Present.

Poet's Food Is Love And Fame.

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.

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!

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

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

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

My Neighbour, Or My Servant, Or My Child, Has Done Me An Injury, And It Is Just That He Should Suffer An Injury In Return. Such Is The Doctrine Which Jesus Christ Summoned His Whole Resources Of Persuasion To Oppose.

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Single Word Even May Be A Spark Of Inextinguishable Thought

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.

All Things Are Sold: The Very Light Of Heaven Is Venal; Earth's Unsparing Gifts Of Love, The Smallest And Most Despicable Things That Lurk In The Abysses Of The Deep, All Objects Of Our Life, Even Life Itself, And The Poor Pittance Which The Laws Allow Of Liberty, The Fellowship Of Man, Those Duties Which His Heart Of Human Love Should Urge Him To Perform Instinctively, Are Bought And Sold As In A Public Mart Of Not Disguising Selfishness, That Sets On Each Its Price, The Stamp-mark Of Her Reign.

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.

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

The World Is Weary Of The Past, Oh, Might It Die Or Rest At Last!

This Lake Exceeds Anything I Ever Beheld In Beauty.

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

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

The Great Instrument Of Moral Good Is The Imagination.

I Wish No Living Thing To Suffer Pain.

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.

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.

I Love Love - Though He Has Wings, And Like Light Can Flee, But Above All Other Things, Spirit, I Love Thee - Thou Art Love And Life! Oh Come, Make Once More My Heart Thy Home.

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.

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

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?

Teas, Where Small Talk Dies In Agonies.

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

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.

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. . . .

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!

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Cold Hopes Swarm Like Worms Within Our Living Clay.

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

He Hath Awakened From The Dream Of Life.

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.

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.

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.

Words Are But Holy As The Deeds They Cover.

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

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

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.

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

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

Poets Are The Unacknowledged Legislators Of The World.

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?

Gold Is A Living God And Rules In Scorn, All Earthly Things But Virtue.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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 Pleasures Of His Species Must Become His Own.

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?

It Were As Wise To Cast A Violet Into A Crucible That You Might Discover The Formal Principle Of Its Color And Odor, As Seek To Transfuse From One Language Into Another The Creations Of A Poet. The Plant Must Spring Again From Its Seed, Or It Will Bear No Flower -- And This Is The Burthen Of The Curse Of Babel.

Nothing Wilts Faster Than Laurels That Have Been Rested Upon.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

"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.

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

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

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

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

[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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

Those Who Love Not Their Fellow-beings Live Unfruitful Lives, And Prepare For Their Old Age A Miserable Grave.

To Be Omnipotent But Friendless Is To Reign.

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

Duty And Dereliction Guide Thee Back To Solitude.

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

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.

Oh That Simplicity And Innocence Its Own Unvalued Work So Seldom Knows!

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

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.

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

Love's Very Pain Is Sweet

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

There Is No Real Wealth But The Labour Of Man.

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.

Our Sweetest Songs Are Those That Tell Of Saddest Thought.

The Jealous Keys Of Truth's Eternal Doors.

Rulers, Who Neither See, Nor Feel, Nor Know, But Leech-like To Their Fainting Country Cling, Till They Drop, Blind In Blood, Without A Blow, - A People Starved And Stabbed In The Untilled Field.

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.

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.

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

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

Love Withers Under Constraints: Its Very Essence Is Liberty: It Is Compatible Neither With Obedience, Jealousy, Nor Fear.

New Relationship

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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

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

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

I 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.

Where Art Thou, Beloved To-morrow? When Young And Old, And Strong And Weak, Rich And Poor, Through Joy And Sorrow, Thy Sweet Smiles We Ever Seek,-- In Thy Place--ah! Well-a-day! We Find The Thing We Fled--to-day!

It Is Only By Softening And Disguising Dead Flesh By Culinary Preparation That It Is Rendered Susceptible Of Mastication Or Digestion, And That The Sight Of Its Bloody Juices And Raw Horror Does Not Excite Intolerable Loathing And Disgust.

Vegetarian Diet

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

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

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

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

Kings Are Like Stars,-they Rise And Set, They Have The Worship Of The World, But No Repose.

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

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

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

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.

(title: To The Moon) Art Thou Pale For Weariness Of Climbing Heaven, And Gazing On The Earth, Wandering Companionless Among The Stars That Have A Different Birth,-- And Ever-changing, Like A Joyless Eye That Finds No Object Worth Its Constancy?

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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?

I Love Tranquil Solitude.

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

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.

No More Let Life Divide What Death Can Join Together.

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 World's Great Age Begins Anew, The Golden Years Return, The Earth Doth Like A Snake Renew Her Winter Weeds Outworn; Heaven Smiles, And Faiths And Empires Gleam, Like Wrecks Of A Dissolving Dream.

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

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.

Sorrow, Terror, Anguish, Despair Itself Are Often The Chosen Expressions Of An Approximation To The Highest Good. Our Sympathy In Tragic Fiction Depends On This Principle; Tragedy Delights By Affording A Shadow Of The Pleasure Which Exists In Pain. This Is The Source Also Of The Melancholy Which Is Inseparable From The Sweetest Melody. The Pleasure That Is In Sorrow Is Sweeter Than The Pleasure Of Pleasure Itself.

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

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

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Fred W. Friendly

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