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Paracelsus At Times I Almost Dream I Too Have Spent A Life The Sages’ Way, And Tread Once More Familiar Paths. Perchance I Perished In An Arrogant Self-reliance Ages Ago; And In That Act A Prayer For One More Chance Went Up So Earnest, So Instinct With Better Light Let In By Death, That Life Was Blotted Out — Not So Completely But Scattered Wrecks Enough Of It Remain, Dim Memories, As Now, When Once More Seems The Goal In Sight Again.

-Robert Browning

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Paracelsus At Times I

Robert Browning

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Paracelsus At Times I Almost Dream I Too Have Spent A Life The Sages’ Way, And Tread Once More Familiar Paths. Perchance I Perished In An Arrogant Self-reliance Ages Ago; And In That Act A Prayer For One More Chance Went Up So Earnest, So Instinct With Better Light Let In By Death, That Life Was Blotted Out — Not So Completely But Scattered Wrecks Enough Of It Remain, Dim Memories, As Now, When Once More Seems The Goal In Sight Again.

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For The Preacher's Merit Or Demerit, It Were To Be Wished That The Flaws Were Fewer In The Earthen Vessel, Holding Treasure, But The Main Thing Is, Does It Hold Good Measure Heaven Soon Sets Right All Other Matters!

But Facts Are Facts And Flinch Not.

Our Interest's On The Dangerous Edge Of Things. The Honest Thief, The Tender Murderer, The Superstitious Atheist.

In Heaven I Yearn For Knowledge, Account All Else Inanity; On Earth I Confess An Itch For The Praise Of Fools - That's Vanity

But What If I Fail Of My Purpose Here? It Is But To Keep The Nerves At Strain, To Dry One's Eyes And Laugh At A Fall, And Baffled, Get Up And Begin Again.

Heart, Fear Nothing, For, Heart, Thou Shalt Find Her- Next Time, Herself!-not The Trouble Behind Her

Dear, Dead Women, With Such Hair, Too--what's Become Of All The Gold Used To Hang And Brush Their Bosoms?

Say Not "a Small Event!" Why "small"? Costs It More Pain That This Ye Call A "great Event" Should Come To Pass From That? Untwine Me From The Mass Of Deeds Which Make Up Life, One Deed Power Shall Fall Short In Or Exceed!

The Curious Crime, The Fine Felicity And Flower Of Wickedness.

I, Painting From Myself And To Myself, Know What I Do, Am Unmoved By Men's Blame Or Their Praise Either.

The Best Things In Life Can Never Be Kept; They Must Be Given Away. A Smile, A Kiss, And Love If You Are Asking If I'd Hurt You, The Answer Is Never. If You Are Asking If I Love U,the Answer Is Forever. If You Are Asking If I Want U,the Answer Is I Do. If You Are Asking What I Value Most, The Answer Is You Grow Old Along With Me, The Best Is Yet To Be.

But God Has A Few Of Us To Whom He Whispers In The Ear; The Rest May Reason And Welcome; 'tis We Musicians Know.

Into The Street The Piper Stepped, Smiling First A Little Smile As If He Knew What Magic Slept In His Quiet Pipe The While. And The Piper Advanced And The Children Followed.

Where The Apple Reddens Never Pry - Lest We Lose Our Edens, Eve And I.

Sorrow, The Heart Must Bear, Sits In The Home Of Each, Conspicuous There. Many A Circumstance, At Least, Touches The Very Breast. For Those Whom Any Sent Away,--he Knows: And In The Live Man's Stead, Armor And Ashes Reach The House Of Each.

The Lie Was Dead And Damned, And Truth Stood Up Instead.

And Gain Is Gain, However Small.

Tis Looking Downward Makes One Dizzy.

I Hear You Reproach, "but Delay Was Best, For Their End Was A Crime." Oh, A Crime Will Do As Well, I Reply, To Serve For A Test As A Virtue Golden Through And Through, Sufficient To Vindicate Itself And Prove Its Worth At A Moment's View! . . . . . . Let A Man Contend To The Uttermost For His Life's Set Prize, Be It What It Will! The Counter Our Lovers Staked Was Lost As Surely As If It Were Lawful Coin; And The Sin I Impute To Each Frustrate Ghost Is-the Unlit Lamp And The Ungirt Loin, Though The End In Sight Was A Vice, I Say.

O Lyric Love, Half Angel And Half Bird. And All A Wonder And A Wild Desire.

Therefore I Summon Age / To Grant Youth's Heritage.

When I Love Most, Love Is Disguised. In Hate; And When Hate Is Surprised, In Love, Then I Hate Most.

O World, As God Has Made It! All Is Beauty.

Truth Never Hurts The Teller.

All's Love, Yet All's Law.

Earth Changes, But Thy Soul And God Stand Sure.

Italy, My Italy! Queen Mary's Saying Serves For Me (when Fortune's Malice Lost Her Calais): "open My Heart, And You Will See Graved Inside Of It 'italy.'"

Days Decrease, / And Autumn Grows, Autumn In Everything.

As Is Your Sort Of Mind, So Is Your Sort Of Search: You Will Find What You Desire.

So, Fall Asleep Love, Loved By Me... For I Know Love, I Am Loved By Thee.

All June I Bound The Rose In Sheaves, Now, Rose By Rose, I Strip The Leaves.

Needs There Groan A World In Anguish Just To Teach Us Sympathy?

Pleasure Must Succeed To Pleasure, Else Past Pleasure Turns To Pain

Shun Death, Is My Advice.

We Shall March Prospering,-not Thro' His Presence; Songs May Inspirit Us,-not From His Lyre; Deeds Will Be Done,-while He Boasts His Quiescence, Still Bidding Crouch Whom The Rest Bade Aspire.

No! Let Me Taste The Whole Of It, Fare Like My Peers, The Heroes Of Old, Bear The Brunt, In A Minute Pay Glad Life's Arrears Of Pain, Darkness And Cold.

A Minute Of Success Pays For Years Of Failure.

Hand Grasps At Hand, Eye Lights Eye In Good Friendship, And Great Hearts Expand And Grow One In The Sense Of This World's Life.

There's A New Tribunal Now Higher Than God's -the Educated Man's!

The Devil, That Old Stager, Who Leads Downward, Perhaps, But Fiddles All The Way!

One May Do Whatever One Likes. In Art, The Only Thing Is, To Make Sure That One Does Like It.

The Heavens And Earth Stay As They Were; My Heart Beats As It Beat: The Truth Remains The Truth.

I Trust In Nature For The Stable Laws Of Beauty And Utility. Spring Shall Plant And Autumn Garner To The End Of Time.

Fail I Alone, In Words And Deeds? Why, All Men Strive And Who Succeeds?

A People Is But The Attempt Of Many To Rise To The Completer Life Of One; And Those Who Live As Models For The Mass Are Singly Of More Value Than They All.

'tis An Awkward Thing To Play With Souls.

The Past Is Gained, Secure, And On Record.

Man Seeks His Own Good At The Whole World's Cost.

Fair Or Foul The Lot Apportioned Life On Earth, We Bear Alike.

Pippa's Song The Year's At The Spring The Day's At The Morn Morning's At Seven, The Hill Side's Dew-pearled The Lark's On The Wing The Snail's On The Thorn God's In His Heaven- All's Right With The World

It 's Wiser Being Good Than Bad; It 's Safer Being Meek Than Fierce; It 's Fitter Being Sane Than Mad. My Own Hope Is, A Sun Will Pierce The Thickest Cloud Earth Ever Stretched; That After Last Returns The First, Though A Wide Compass Round Be Fetched.

Oh Never Star Was Lost Here But It Rose Afar.

Better Have Failed In The High Aim, As I, Than Vulgarly In The Low Aim Succeed As, God Be Thanked! I Do Not.

God Be Thanked, The Meanest Of His Creatures Boasts Two Soul-sides, One To Face The World With, One To Show A Woman When He Loves Her.

Truth Is Within Ourselves.

Stand Still, True Poet That You Are! I Know You; Let Me Try And Draw You. Some Night You'll Fail Us: When Afar You Rise, Remember One Man Saw You, Knew You, And Named A Star!

All Poetry Is Difficult To Read - The Sense Of It Anyhow.

There Is Nothing So Unpardonable As To Consent To A Senseless, Aimless, Purposeless Life.

Time'swheelsrunsbackor Stops: Potterand Clayendure.

Let Friend Trust Friends, And Love Demand Love's Like.

God Is Seen God In The Star, In The Stone, In The Flesh, In The Soul And The Clod.

Go In Thy Native Innocence, Rely On What Thou Hast Of Virtue, Summon All, For God Towards Thee Hath Done His Part, Do Thine.

Lofty Designs Must Close In Like Effects.

Of What I Call God, And Fools Call Nature.

Youth Means Love, Vows Can't Change Nature, Priests Are Only Men.

And Inasmuch As Feeling, The East's Gift, Is Quick And Transient,- Comes, And Lo! Is Gone, While Northern Thought Is Slow And Durable.

The Peerless Cup Afloat Of The Lake-lily Is An Urn Some Nymph Swims Bearing High Above Her Head.

At Last Awake From Life, That Insane Dream We Take For Waking Now.

What A Name! Was It Love Or Praise? Speech Half-asleep Or Song Half-awake? I Must Learn Spanish, One Of These Days, Only For That Slow Sweet Name's Sake.

All Service Ranks The Same With God,- With God, Whose Puppets, Best And Worst, Are We: There Is No Last Nor First.

That Low Man Seeks A Little Thing To Do, Sees It And Does It: This High Man, With A Great Thing To Pursue, Dies Ere He Knows It. That Low Man Goes On Adding One To One, His Hundred's Soon Hit: This High Man, Aiming At A Million, Misses An Unit. That, Has The World Here-should He Need The Next, Let The World Mind Him! This, Throws Himself On God, And Unperplext Seeking Shall Find Him.

How Sad And Bad And Mad It Was - But Then, How It Was Sweet

I Know A Mount, The Gracious Sun Perceives First When He Visits, Last, Too, When He Leaves The World; And, Vainly Favored, It Repays The Day-long Glory Of His Steadfast Gaze By No Change Of Its Large Calm Front Of Snow.

Success In Marriage Is More Than Finding The Right Person: It Is Being The Right Person.

Men Are Not Angels, Neither Are They Brutes.

T'was A Thief Said The Last Kind Word To Christ. Christ Took The Kindness And Forgave The Theft.

Twere Too Absurd To Slight For The Hereafter The Todays Delight!

Such Ever Was Love's Way: To Rise, It Stoops.

Kiss Me As If You Made Believe You Were Not Sure This Eve, How My Face, Your Flower, Had Pursed It's Petals Up.

Take Away Love And Our Earth Is A Tomb.

How Very Hard It Is To Be A Christian!

Our Aspirations Are Our Responsibilities.

Truth Is Truth Howe'er It Strike.

Strike When Thou Wilt, The Hour Of Rest, But Let My Last Days Be My Best.

Then Welcome Each Rebuff That Turns Earth's Smoothness Rough, Each Sting That Bids Nor Sit Nor Stand, But Go! Be Our Joys Three-parts Pain! Strive, And Hold Cheap The Strain; Learn, Nor Account The Pang; Dare, Never Grudge The Throe!

To Me At Least Was Never Evening Yet, But Seemed Far Beautifuller Than Its Day.

It's Like Those Eerie Stories Nurses Tell, Of How Some Actor On A Stage Played Death, With Pasteboard Crown, Sham Orb And Tinselled Dart, And Called Himself The Monarch Of The World; Then, Going In The Tire-room Afterward, Because The Play Was Done, To Shift Himself, Got Touched Upon The Sleeve Familiarly, The Moment He Had Shut The Closet Door, By Death Himself. Thus God Might Touch A Pope At Unawares, Ask What His Baubles Mean, And Whose Part He Presumed To Play Just Now. Best Be Yourself, Imperial, Plain And True!

We Find Great Things Are Made Of Little Things, And Little Things Go Lessening Till At Last Comes God Behind Them.

The Common Problem, Yours, Mine, Everyone's Is ? Not To Fancy What Were Fair In Life Provided It Could Be ? But, Finding First What May Be, Then Find How To Make It Fair Up To Our Means.

Truth Is Within Ourselves. There Is An Inmost Center In Us All, Where The Truth Abides In Fullness.

Praise Is Deeper Than The Lips

I Say, The Acknowledgment Of God In Christaccepted By Thy Reason, Solves For Theeall Questions In The Earth And Out Of It,and Has So Far Advanced Thee To Be Wise.

If Two Lives Join, There Is Oft A Scar. They Are One And One, With A Shadowy Third; One Near One Is Too Far.

How Good Is Life, The Mere Living!

God's Justice, Tardy Though It Prove Perchance, Rests Never On The Track Until It Reach Delinquency.

Silence 'tis Awe Decrees.

Thou Art My Single Day, God Lends To Leaven What Were All Earth Else, With A Feel Of Heaven.

It's Wiser Being Good Than Bad; It's Safer Being Meek Than Fierce: It's Fitter Being Sane Than Mad.

One Who Never Turned His Back But Marched Breast Forward, Never Doubted Clouds Would Break, Never Dreamed, Though Right Were Worsted, Wrong Would Triumph, Held We Fall To Rise, Are Baffled To Fight Better, Sleep To Wake.

I Dare Not So Honor My Mere Wishes And Prayers As To Put Them For A Moment Beside Your Noble Acts; But This Know, I Would Rather Submit To The Worst Of Deaths, So Far As Pain Goes, Than Have A Single Dog Or Cat Tortured On The Pretence Of Sparing Me A Twinge Or Two.

Wander At Will, Day After Day,-- Wander Away, Wandering Still-- Soul That Canst Soar! Body May Slumber: Body Shall Cumber Soul-flight No More.

Finds Progress, Man's Distinctive Mark Alone, Not God's, And Not The Beast's; God Is, They Are, Man Partly Is, And Wholly Hopes To Be.

Life Is An Empty Dream.

All Poetry Is Putting The Infinite Within The Finite.

Who Hears Music Feels His Solitude Peopled At Once.

Inspirational Music

Truth Never Hurt The Teller.

There Are Three Ways Of Learning Golf: By Study, Which Is The Most Wearisome; By Imitation, Which Is The Most Fallacious; And By Experience, Which Is The Most Bitter.

I Was Made And Meant To Look For You And Wait For You And Become Yours Forever.

What So Wild As Words Are?

That Great Brow And The Spirit-small Hand Propping It.

Thought Is The Soul Of Act.

Who Knows Most, Doubts Most; Entertaining Hope Means Recognizing Fear.

What A Thing Friendship Is - World Without End.

A Whole I Planned, Youth Shows But Half; Trust God: See All, Nor Be Afraid!

Best Is Yet To Come

I Have Lived, And Seen God's Hand Thro A Life Time, And All Was For The Best.

That We Devote Ourselves To God, Is Seen In Living Just As Though No God There Were.

Oh, The Little More, And How Much It Is! And The Little Less, And What Worlds Away.

O Woman-country! Wooed Not Wed, Loved All The More By Earth's Male-lands, Laid To Their Hearts Instead.

How He Lies In His Rights Of A Man! Death Has Done All Death Can. And Absorbed In The New Life He Leads, He Recks Not, He Heeds Nor His Wrong Nor My Vengeance; Both Strike On His Senses Alike, And Are Lost In The Solemn And Strange Surprise Of The Change.

Of Power Does Man Possess No Particle: Of Knowledge-just So Much As Show That Still It Ends In Ignorance On Every Side.

I See My Way As Birds Their Trackless Way. I Shall Arrive,- What Time, What Circuit First, I Ask Not; But Unless God Send His Hail Or Blinding Fire-balls, Sleet Or Stifling Snow, In Some Time, His Good Time, I Shall Arrive: He Guides Me And The Bird. In His Good Time.

Tis Man's To Explore Up And Down, Inch By Inch, With The Taper His Reason.

I Do What Many Dream Of, All Their Lives

Might She Have Loved Me? Just As Well She Might Have Hated, Who Can Tell!

Desire Joy And Thank God For It. Renounce It, If Need Be, For Other's Sake. That's Joy Beyond Joy.

But Little Do Or Can The Best Of Us: That Little Is Achieved Through Liberty.

As If True Pride Were Not Also Humble!

In God's Good Time, Which Does Not Always Fall On Saturday When The World Looks For Wages.

Love Is The Energy Of Life.

That's The Wise Thrush; He Sings Each Song Twice Over, Lest You Should Think He Never Could Recapture The First Fine Careless Rapture!

Measure Your Mind's Height By The Shade It Casts.

I Have No Little Insight Into The Feelings Of Furniture, And Treat Books And Prints With A Reasonable Consideration. How Some People Use Their Pictures, For Instance, Is A Mystery To Me; Very Revolting All The Same--portraits Obliged To Face Each Other For Ever--prints Put Together In Portfolios.

The Aim, If Reached Or Not, Makes Great The Life: Try To Be Shakespeare, Leave The Rest To Fate!

What's A Man's Age? He Must Hurry More, That's All; Cram In A Day, What His Youth Took A Year To Hold.

Why Comes Temptation But For Man To Meet And Master And Make Crouch Beneath His Foot, And So Be Pedestaled In Triumph?

All Good Things Are Ours, Nor Soul Helps Flesh More, Now, Than Flesh Helps Soul!

Good Strong Thick Stupefying Incense-smoke!

Since There My Past Life Lies, Why Alter It?

God Smiles As He Has Always Smiled; Ere Suns And Moons Could Wax And Wane, Ere Stars Were Thundergirt, Or Piled The Heavens, God Thought On Me His Child; Ordained A Life For Me, Arrayed Its Circumstances, Every One To The Minutest; Ay, God Said This Head This Hand Should Rest Upon Thus, Ere He Fashioned Star Or Sun.

All Service Is The Same With God.

Only I Discern Infinite Passion, And The Pain Of Finite Hearts That Yearn.

Motherhood: All Love Begins And Ends There.

Is Your Love For The Lord Sufficient To Give All Your Time And Talents To His Work?

Good To Forgive, Best To Forget.

Ah, But A Man's Reach Should Exceed His Grasp, Or What's A Heaven For?

How Good Is Man's Life, The Mere Living! How Fit To Employ All The Heart And The Soul And The Senses Forever In Joy!

Never The Time And The Place And The Loved One All Together.

Ah, Love, - You Are My Unutterable Blessing.....i Am In Full Sunshine Now.

I Count Life Just A Stuff To Try The Soul's Strength On.

Go Practice If You Please With Men And Women: Leave A Child Alone For Christ's Particular Love's Sake!

My Business Is Not To Remake Myself, But To Make The Absolute Best Of What God Made.

I Know What I Want And What I Might Gain, And Yet, How Profitless To Know.

My Sun Sets To Rise Again.

He Who Did Well In War Just Earns The Right, To Begin Doing Well In Peace.

Just For A Handful Of Silver He Left Us, Just For A Riband To Stick In His Coat.

If You Can Sit At Set Of Sun And Count The Deeds That You Have Done And Counting Find Oneself-denying Act, One Word That Eased The Heart Of Him That Heard. One Glance Most Kind, Which Fell Like Sunshine Where He Went, Then You May Count That Day Well Spent.

Escape Me? Never, Beloved! While I Am I, And You Are You.

I Am Grown Peaceful As Old Age Tonight.

How Well I Know What I Mean To Do When The Long Dark Autumn Evenings Come, And Where, My Soul, Is Thy Pleasant Hue? With The Music Of All Thy Voices, Dumb In Life’s November Too! I Shall Be Found By The Fire, Suppose, O’er A Great Wise Book As Beseemeth Age, While The Shutters Flap As The Cross-wind Blows, And I Turn The Page, And I Turn The Page, Not Verse Now, Only Prose!

A Man In Armour Is His Armour's Slave.

All Will Be Gay When Noontide Wakes Anew The Buttercups, The Little Children's Dower.

Can We Love But On Condition That The Thing We Love Must Die?

Make Us Happy And You Make Us Good.

They Are Perfect; How Else?-they Shall Never Change: We Are Faulty; Why Not?-we Have Time In Store.

If All The World Is A Stage And Life Is Just A Play Upon It, Get Me Two Seats In The Stalls.

The Body Sprang At Once To The Height, And Stayed; But The Soul,-no!

Ever Judge Of Men By Their Professions. For Though The Bright Moment Of Promising Is But A Moment, And Cannot Be Prolonged, Yet If Sincere In Its Moment's Extravagant Goodness, Why, Trust It, And Know The Man By It, I Say,- Not By His Performance; Which Is Half The World's Work, Interfere As The World Needs Must With Its Accidents And Circumstances: The Profession Was Purely The Man's Own. I Judge People By What They Might Be,- Not Are, Nor Will Be.

There Shall Never Be One Lost Good! What Was, Shall Live As Before; The Evil Is Null, Is Nought, Is Silence Implying Sound; What Was Good Shall Be Good, With For Evil So Much Good More; On The Earth The Broken Arcs; In The Heaven, A Perfect Round.

Why Stay On The Earth Except To Grow.

Open My Heart, And You Will See Graved Inside Of It ‘italy.'

The Ultimate, Angels' Law, Indulging Every Instinct Of The Soul There Where Law, Life, Joy, Impulse Are One Thing!

What's Come To Perfection Perishes. Things Learned On Earth We Shall Practice In Heaven; Works Done Least Rapidly Art Most Cherishes.

God! Thou Art Love! I Build My Faith On That.

To Do Good Things In The World, First You Must Know Who You Are And What Gives Meaning To Your Life.

Death: The Grand Perhaps.

My Care Is For Myself; Myself Am Whole And Sole Reality.

Grow Old Along With Me! The Best Is Yet To Be, The Last Of Life, For Which The First Was Made. Our Times Are In His Hand Who Saith, 'a Whole I Planned, Youth Shows But Half; Trust God: See All, Nor Be Afraid!

Once More On My Adventure Brave And New.

I Walked A Mile With Pleasure; She Chattered All The Way. But Left Me None The Wiser For All She Had To Say. I Walked A Mile With Sorrow And Ne'er A Word Said She; But Oh, The Things I Learned From Her When Sorrow Walked With Me!

A Minute's Success Pays The Failure Of Years.

But There Are Times When Patience Proves At Fault.

I Show You Doubt, To Prove That Faith Exists.

Every One Soon Or Late Comes Round By Rome.

The Trouble That Most Of Us Find With The Modern Matched Sets Of Clubs Is That They Don't Really Seem To Know Any More About The Game Than The Old Ones Did.

Oh, To Be In England Now That April's There.

April And Spring

Have You Found Your Life Distasteful? My Life Did, And Does, Smack Sweet. Was Your Youth Of Pleasure Wasteful? Mine I Saved And Hold Complete. Do Your Joys With Age Diminish? When Mine Fail Me, I'll Complain. Must In Death Your Daylight Finish? My Sun Sets To Rise Again.

What? Was Man Made A Wheel-work To Wind Up, And Be Discharged, And Straight Wound Up Anew? No! Grown, His Growth Lasts; Taught, He Ne'er Forgets: May Learn A Thousand Things, Not Twice The Same.

Oh, Good Gigantic Smile O' The Brown Old Earth, This Autumn Morning! How He Sets His Bones To Bask I' The Sun, And Thrusts Out Knees And Feet. From The Ripple To Run Over In Its Mirth

Love, Hope, Fear, Faith - These Make Humanity; These Are Its Sign And Note And Character.

Look Not Down But Up!

When The Liquor's Out, Why Clink The Cannikin?

Where The Heart Lies, Let The Brain Lie Also.

Who Knows But The World May End Tonight

But How Carve Way I' The Life That Lies Before, If Bent On Groaning Ever For The Past?

Talent Should Minister To Genius.

Was There Nought Better Than To Enjoy? No Feat Which, Done, Would Make Time Break, And Let Us Pent-up Creatures Through Into Eternity, Our Due? No Forcing Earth Teach Heaven's Employ?

Brightest Truth, Purest Trust In The Universe, All Were For Me, In The Kiss Of One Girl.

Lose Who May-i Still Can Say, Those Who Win Heaven, Blest Are They!

Art Remains The One Way Possible Of Speaking Truth.

Any Nose May Ravage With Impunity A Rose.

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