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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.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Obscenity, Which Is Ever

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Honour Sits Smiling At The Sale Of Truth.

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.

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.

He Hath Awakened From The Dream Of Life.

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.

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.

A Christian, A Deist, A Turk, And A Jew, Have Equal Rights: They Are Men And Brethren.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

We Look Before And After, And Pine For What Is Not; Our Sincerest Laughter With Some Pain Is Fraught; Our Sweetest Songs Are Those That Tell Of Saddest Thought.

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.

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

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.

Nothing Wilts Faster Than Laurels That Have Been Rested Upon.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

A Dream Has Power To Poison Sleep.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

Forces Of Nature

I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy.

Joy, Once Lost, Is Pain

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

What Do You Think? Young Women Of Rank Eat - You Will Never Guess What - Garlick!

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

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

The Great Instrument Of Moral Good Is The Imagination.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

I Fall Upon The Thorns Of Life.

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

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

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!

Thou Paradise Of Exiles, Italy!

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

No Mistake Is More To Be Deplored Than The Conception That A System Of Morals And Religion Should Derive Any Portion Of Its Authority Either From The Circumstance Of Its Novelty Or Its Antiquity, That It Should Be Judged Excellent, Not Because It Is Reasonable Or True, But Because No Person Has Ever Thought Of It Before, Or Because It Has Been Thought Of From The Beginning Of Time.

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

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.

I Wish No Living Thing To Suffer Pain.

All Love Is Sweet Given Or Returned. Common As Light Is Love, And Its Familiar Voice Wearies Not Ever.

See The Mountains Kiss High Heaven And The Waves Clasp One Another; No Sister-flower Would Be Forgiven If It Disdained Its Brother; And The Sunlight Clasps The Earth, And The Moonbeams Kiss The Sea - What Is All This Sweet Work Worth If Thou Kiss Not Me?

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.

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.

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 Man Of Virtuous Soul Commands Not, Nor Obeys.

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

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

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

I Love All Waste And Solitary Places.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Spirit, Patience, Gentleness, All That Can Adorn And Bless Art Thou Let Deeds, Not Words, Express Thine Exceeding Loveliness.

Where Is Perfection? Where I Cannot Reach.

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

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.

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

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!

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

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.

Cold Hopes Swarm Like Worms Within Our Living Clay.

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

New Relationship

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

Design Must Be Proved Before A Designer Can Be Inferred.

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

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

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.

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

I Love Tranquil Solitude.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

History Is A Cyclic Poem Written By Time Upon The Memories Of Man.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Peace Is In The Grave.

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.

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

Poets Are The Unacknowledged Legislators Of The World.

Soul Meets Soul On Lovers' Lips.

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.

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

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.

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.

Sometimes The Devil Is A Gentleman.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

Familiar Acts Are Beautiful Through Love.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Music, When Soft Voices Die Vibrates In The Memory.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Teas, Where Small Talk Dies In Agonies.

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

In The Infancy Of Society Every Author Is Necessarily A Poet

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Necessity, Thou Mother Of The World!

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?

(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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

I Am 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.

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

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

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.

We Know Not What We Do When We Speak Words.

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Mario Balotelli

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