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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.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

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The Rich Have Become

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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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.

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

To Be Omnipotent But Friendless Is To Reign.

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.

Familiar Acts Are Beautiful Through Love.

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.

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. . . .

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

Better Than All Measures Of Delightful Sound, Better Than All Treasures That In Books Are Found, Thy Skill To Poet Were, Thou Scorner Of The Ground!

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.

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

A Single Word Even May Be A Spark Of Inextinguishable Thought

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 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.

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

We Know Not What We Do When We Speak Words.

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

He Hath Awakened From The Dream Of Life.

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?

A Poet Is A Nightingale, Who Sits In Darkness And Sings To Cheer Its Own Solitude With Sweet Sounds.

O Cease! Must Hate And Death Return, Cease! Must Men Kill And Die? Cease! Drain Not To Its Dregs The Urn Of Bitter Prophecy. The World Is Weary Of The Past, Oh, Might It Die Or Rest At Last!

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 Psychological And Moral Comfort Of A Presence At Once Humble And Understanding-this Is The Greatest Benefit That The Dog Has Bestowed Upon Man.

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

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

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

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

Necessity, Thou Mother Of The World!

Dar'st Thou Amid The Varied Multitude To Live Alone, An Isolated Thing?

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.

The Discussion Of Any Subject Is A Right That You Have Brought Into The World With Your Heart And Tongue. Resign Your Heart's Blood Before You Part With This Inestimable Privilege Of Man.

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

Music, When Soft Voices Die Vibrates In The Memory.

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.

Words Are But Holy As The Deeds They Cover.

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.

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.

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

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

The Soul's Joy Lies In Doing.

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.

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?

I Pant, I Sink, I Tremble, I Expire!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Self Improvement

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

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.

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

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

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

Thou Paradise Of Exiles, Italy!

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.

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

Songs Consecrate To Truth And Liberty.

Reviewers, With Some Rare Exceptions, Are A Most Stupid And Malignant Race. As A Bankrupt Thief Turns Thief-taker In Despair, So An Unsuccessful Author Turns Critic.

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

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.

Twin-sister Of Religion, Selfishness.

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

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

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.

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!

Where Is Perfection? Where I Cannot Reach.

For There Are Deeds Which Have No Form, Sufferings Which Have No Tongue.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Near That A Dusty Paint-box, Some Odd Hooks, A Half-burnt Match, An Ivory Block, Three Books, Where Conic Sections, Spherics, Logarithms, To Great Laplace, From Saunderson And Sims, Lie Heaped In Their Harmonious Disarray Of Figures,-disentangle Them Who May.

Nought May Endure But Mutability.

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.

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.

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.

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

And Priests Dare Babble Of A God Of Peace, Even Whilst Their Hands Are Red With Guiltless Blood, Murdering The While, Uprooting Every Germ Of Truth, Exterminating, Spoiling All, Making The Earth A Slaughter - House!

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.

It Is Found Easier, By The Short-sighted Victims Of Disease, To Palliate Their Torments By Medicine, Than To Prevent Them By Regimen

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

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

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!

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

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!

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.

"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.

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

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.

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

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

This Is Heaven, When Pain And Evil Cease, And When The Benignant Principle, Untrammelled And Uncontrolled, Visits In The Fulness Of Its Power The Universal Frame Of Things.

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.

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.

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.

Honour Sits Smiling At The Sale Of Truth.

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

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

Sometimes The Devil Is A Gentleman.

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

New Relationship

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Joy, Once Lost, Is Pain

Kiss Me, So Long But As A Kiss May Last!

Teas, Where Small Talk Dies In Agonies.

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 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!

The Jealous Keys Of Truth's Eternal Doors.

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

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

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

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

There Is No Real Wealth But The Labour Of Man.

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.

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

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

Heaven's Ebon Vault Studded With Stars Unutterably Bright, Through Which The Moon's Unclouded Grandeur Rolls, Seems Like A Canopy Which Love Has Spread To Curtain Her Sleeping World.

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

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

It Were Much Better That A Sentient Being Should Never Have Existed, Than That It Should Have Existed Only To Endure Unmitigated Misery.

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!

That Sweet Sleep Which Medicines All Pain.

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.

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.

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

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

A Dream Has Power To Poison Sleep.

I Was An Infant When My Mother Went To See An Atheist Burned. She Took Me There. The Dark-robed Priests Were Met Around The Pile; The Multitude Was Gazing Silently; And As The Culprit Passed With Dauntless Mien, Tempered Disdain In His Unaltering Eye, Mixed With A Quiet Smile, Shone Calmly Forth; The Thirsty Fire Crept Round His Manly Limbs; His Resolute Eyes Were Scorched To Blindness Soon; His Death-pang Rent My Heart! The Insensate Mob Uttered A Cry Of Triumph, And I Wept. Weep Not, Child! Cried My Mother, For That Man Has Said, 'there Is No God.'

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

(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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

O'er Egypt's Land Of Memory Floods Are Level, And They Are Thine, O Nile! And Well Thou Knowest The Soul-sustaining Airs And Blasts Of Evil, And Fruits, And Poisons Spring Where'er Thou Flowest.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I Love All Waste And Solitary Places; Where We Taste The Pleasure Of Believing What We See Is Boundless, As We Wish Our Souls To Be.

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 Fall Upon The Thorns Of Life.

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

The Encomium Of One Incapable Of Flattery Is Indeed Flattering.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

... 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

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.

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.

He Wanders, Like A Day-appearing Dream, Through The Dim Wildernesses Of The Mind; Through Desert Woods And Tracts, Which Seem Like Ocean, Homeless, Boundless, Unconfined.

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.

Cold Hopes Swarm Like Worms Within Our Living Clay.

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

I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

All Love Is Sweet, Given Or Received.

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

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

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.

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 Most Fertile Districts Of The Habitable Globe Are Now Actually Cultivated By Men For Animals, At A Delay And Waste Of Aliment Absolutely Incapable Of Calculation

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.

Strange Thoughts Beget Strange Deeds.

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.

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.

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