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We Get No Good By Being Ungenerous, Even To A Book, And Calculating Profits--so Much Help By So Much Reading. It Is Rather When We Gloriously Forget Ourselves, And Plunge Soul-forward, Headlong, Into A Book's Profound, Impassioned For Its Beauty, And Salt Of Truth-- 'tis Then We Get The Right Good From A Book.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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We Get No Good

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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We Get No Good By Being Ungenerous, Even To A Book, And Calculating Profits--so Much Help By So Much Reading. It Is Rather When We Gloriously Forget Ourselves, And Plunge Soul-forward, Headlong, Into A Book's Profound, Impassioned For Its Beauty, And Salt Of Truth-- 'tis Then We Get The Right Good From A Book.

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Suddenly, As Rare Things Will, It Vanished.

The Beautiful Seems Right By Force Of Beauty And The Feeble Wrong Because Of Weakness.

She Lived, We'll Say, A Harmless Life, She Called A Virtuous Life, A Quiet Life, Which Was Not Life At All (but That She Had Not Lived Enough To Know)

The Greeks Said Grandly In Their Tragic Phrase, 'let No One Be Called Happy Till His Death;' To Which I Would Add, 'let No One, Till His Death, Be Called Unhappy.'

I Have Done Most Of My Talking By Post Of Late Years--as People Shut Up In Dungeons Take Up With Scrawling Mottoes On The Walls.

Many A Crown Covers Bald Foreheads.

For Poets (bear The Word) Half-poets Even, Are Still Whole Democrats.

May The Good God Pardon All Good Men.

The Little Cares That Fretted Me, I Lost Them Yesterday Among The Fields Above The Sea, Among The Winds At Play.

How Many Desolate Creatures On The Earth Have Learnt The Simple Dues Of Fellowship And Social Comfort, In A Hospital.

Many A Fervid Man Writes Books As Cold And Flat As Graveyard Stones.

The English Have A Scornful Insular Way Of Calling The French Light.

Death Forerunneth Love To Win "sweetest Eyes Were Ever Seen."

Who Can Fear Too Many Stars, Though Each In Heaven Shall Roll- Too Many Flowers, Though Each Shall Crown The Year? Say Thou Dost Love Me, Love Me, Love Me-toll The Silver Iterance!-only Minding, Dear, To Love Me Also In Silence, With Thy Soul.

A Woman's Pity Sometimes Makes Her Mad.

Never Say No When The World Says Aye.

I Would Not Be A Rose Upon The Wall A Queen Might Stop At, Near The Palace-door, To Say To A Courtier, "pluck That Rose For Me, It's Prettier Than The Rest." O Romney Leigh! I'd Rather Far Be Trodden By His Foot, Than Lie In A Great Queen's Bosom.

The Sweetest Lives Are Those To Duty Wed, Whose Deeds, Both Great And Small Are Close-knot Strands Of An Unbroken Thread There Love Ennobles All. The World May Sound No Trumpets, Ring No Bells The Book Of Life The Shining Record Tells. Thy Love Shall Chant Its Own Beatitudes After Its Own Life-workings. A Child's Kiss Set On Thy Sighing Lips Shall Make Thee Glad; A Poor Man Served By Thee Shall Make Thee Rich; A Sick Man Helped By Thee Shall Make Thee Strong; Thou Shalt Serve Thyself By Every Sense, Of Service Which Thou Renderest.

Purple Lilies Dante Blew To A Larger Bubble With His Prophet Breath.

You Smell A Rose Through A Fence: If Two Should Smell It, What Matter?

Two Human Loves Make One Divine.

When We First Met And Loved, I Did Not Build Upon The Event With Marble. . . .

I Love You For The Part Of Me That You Bring Out.

What Is Genius But The Power Of Expressing A New Individuality?

If I Leave All For Thee, Wilt Thou Exchange And Be All To Me?

Will That Light Come Again, As Now These Tears Come...falling Hot And Real!

Art Is Much, But Love Is More.

I Saw, In Gradual Vision Through My Tears, The Sweet, Sad Years, The Melancholy Years, Those Of My Own Life, Who By Turns Had Flung A Shadow Across Me.

Earth's Crammed With Heaven, And Every Common Bush Afire With God: But Only He Who Sees Takes Off His Shoes.

Knowledge By Suffering Entereth, And Life Is Perfected By Death.

Nor Myrtle--which Means Chiefly Love: And Love Is Something Awful Which One Dare Not Touch So Early O' Mornings.

Whatever's Lost, It First Was Won.

New Angel Mine, Unhoped For In The World!

In Your Patience Ye Are Strong.

Too Much Beauty, I Reckon, Is Nothing But Too Much Sun.

Free Men Freely Work: Whoever Fears God, Fears To Sit At Ease.

A Man May Love A Woman Perfectly, And Yet By No Means Ignorantly Maintain A Thousand Women Have Not Larger Eyes. Enough That She Alone Has Looked At Him With Eyes That, Large Or Small, Have Won His Soul.

Measure Not The Work Until The Day's Out And The Labor Done.

What Monster Have We Here? A Great Deed At This Hour Of Day? A Great Just Deed - And Not For Pay? Absurd - Or Insincere?

Experience, Like A Pale Musician, Holds A Dulcimer Of Patience In His Hand.

Where Christ Brings His Cross He Brings His Presence; And Where He Is None Are Desolate, And There Is No Room For Despair.

Quick-loving Hearts ... May Quickly Loathe.

Yes, I Answered You Last Night; No, This Morning, Sir, I Say: Colors Seen By Candle-light Will Not Look The Same By Day.

God Answers Sharp And Sudden On Some Prayers, And Thrusts The Thing We Have Prayed For In Our Face, A Gauntlet With A Gift In It.

The Tyrant Should Take Heed To What He Doth, Since Every Victim-carrion Turns To Use, And Drives A Chariot, Like A God Made Wroth, Against Each Piled Injustice.

Love That Endures, From Life That Disappears!

I F Thou Must Love Me, Let It Be For Nought Except For Love's Sake Only. Do Not Say, I Love Her For Her Smile ... Her Look ... Her Way Of Speaking Gently ... For A Trick Of Thought That Falls In Well With Mine, And, Certes, Brought A Sense Of Pleasant Ease On Such A Day- For These Things In Themselves, Beloved, May Be Changed, Or Change For Thee-and Love So Wrought, May Be Unwrought So.

My Sun Sets To Raise Again.

Most Illogical Irrational Nature Of Our Womanhood, That Blushes One Way, Feels Another Way, And Prays, Perhaps Another!

Some People Always Sigh In Thanking God.

Alas, I Have Grieved So I Am Hard To Love. Yet Love Me--wilt Thou? Open Thine Heart Wide, And Fold Within, The Wet Wings Of Thy Dove.

We Overstate The Ills Of Life, And Take Imagination... Down Our Earth To Rake.

I Love Thee To The Level Of Everyday's Most Quiet Need, By Sun And Candle Light...i Love Thee With The Breath,smiles,t Ears,of All My Life.

Souls Are Gregarious In A Sense, But No Soul Touches Another, As A General Rule.

And Lilies Are Still Lilies, Pulled By Smutty Hands, Though Spotted From Their White.

O Rose, Who Dares To Name Thee? No Longer Roseate Now, Nor Soft, Nor Sweet, But Pale, And Hard, And Dry, As Stubblewheat, Kept Seven Years In A Drawer, Thy Titles Shame Thee.

Deep Violets, You Liken To The Kindest Eyes That Look On You, Without A Thought Disloyal.

What Frightens Me Is That Men Are Content With What Is Not Life At All.

Wall Must Get The Weather Stain Before They Grow The Ivy.

A Child's Kiss Set On Thy Sighing Lips Shall Make Thee Glad; A Poor Man Served By Thee Shall Make Thee Rich; A Sick Man Helped By Thee Shall Make Thee Strong; Thou Shalt Be Served Thyself By Every Sense Of Service Which Thou Renderest.

Utterance Is The Evidence Of Foregone Study.

I, Who Had Had My Heart Full For Hours, Took Advantage Of An Early Moment Of Solitude, To Cry In It Very Bitterly. Suddenly A Little Hairy Head Thrust Itself From Behind My Pillow Into My Face, Rubbing Its Ears And Nose Against Me In A Responsive Agitation, And Drying The Tears As They Came.

There Shakespeare, On Whose Forehead Climb The Crowns O' The World; Oh, Eyes Sublime With Tears And Laughter For All Time!

He Who Breathes Deepest Lives Most.

Do Ye Hear The Children Weeping, O My Brothers?

Women Know The Way To Rear Up Children (to Be Just). They Know A Simple, Merry, Tender Knack Of Tying Sashes, Fitting Baby-shoes, And Stringing Pretty Words That Make No Sense. And Kissing Full Sense Into Empty Words.

Earth May Embitter, Not Remove, The Love Divinely Given; And E'en That Mortal Grief Shall Prove The Immortality Of Love, And Lead Us Nearer Heaven.

It Is Difficult To Get Rid Of People When You Once Have Given Them Too Much Pleasure.

There, That Is Our Secret: Go To Sleep! You Will Wake, And Remember, And Understand.

At Painful Times, When Composition Is Impossible And Reading Not Enough, Grammars And Dictionaries Are Excellent For Distraction.

Who So Loves Believes The Impossible.

Sing, Seraph With The Glory! Heaven Is High. Sing, Poet With The Sorrow! Earth Is Low. The Universe's Inward Voices Cry "amen" To Either Song Of Joy And Woe. Sing, Seraph, Poet! Sing On Equally!

But I Love You, Sir: And When A Woman Says She Loves A Man, The Man Must Hear Her, Though He Love Her Not.

The Essence Of All Beauty, I Call Love, The Attribute, The Evidence, And End, The Consummation To The Inward Sense Of Beauty Apprehended From Without, I Still Call Love.

Yet Half The Beast Is The Great God Pan, To Laugh, As He Sits By The River, Making A Poet Out Of A Man. The True Gods Sigh For The Cost And The Pain-- For The Reed That Grows Never More Again As A Reed With The Reeds Of The River.

You May Write Twenty Lines One Day--or Even Three Like Euripides In Three Days--and A Hundred Lines In One More Day--and Yet On The Hundred, May Have Been Expended As Much Good Work, As On The Twenty And The Three.

What Is Art But The Life Upon The Larger Scale, The Higher. When, Graduating Up In A Spiral Line Of Still Expanding And Ascending Gyres, It Pushes Toward The Intense Significance Of All Things, Hungry For The Infinite?

The Music Soars Within The Little Lark, And The Lark Soars.

How Joyously The Young Sea-mew Lay Dreaming On The Waters Blue, Whereon Our Little Bark Had Thrown A Little Shade, The Only One; But Shadows Ever Man Pursue.

Of All The Thoughts Of God That Are Borne Inward Unto Souls Afar, Along The Psalmist's Music Deep, Now Tell Me If That Any Is. For Gift Or Grace, Surpassing This-- He Giveth His Beloved Sleep.

Yet How Proud We Are, In Daring To Look Down Upon Ourselves!

A Great Acacia, With Its Slender Trunk And Overpoise Of Multitudinous Leaves. (in Which A Hundred Fields Might Spill Their Dew And Intense Verdure, Yet Find Room Enough) Stood Reconciling All The Place With Green.

And Friends, Dear Friends,--when It Shall Be That This Low Breath Is Gone From Me, And Gone My Bier Ye Come To Weep, Let One, Most Loving Of You All, Say, "not A Tear Must O'er Her Fall; He Giveth His Beloved Sleep.

Gaze Up At The Stars Knowing That I See The Same Sky And Wish The Same Sweet Dreams.

And Is It Not The Chief Good Of Money, The Being Free From The Need Of Thinking Of It?

The Plague Of Gold Strikes Far And Near.

Happy Are All Free Peoples, Too Strong To Be Dispossessed. But Blessed Are Those Among Nations Who Dare To Be Strong For The Rest!

He's Just, Your Cousin, Ay, Abhorrently, He'd Wash His Hands In Blood, To Keep Them Clean.

A Woman Cannot Do The Thing She Ought, Which Means Whatever Perfect Thing She Can, In Life, In Art, In Science, But She Fears To Let The Perfect Action Take Her Part And Rest There: She Must Prove What She Can Do Before She Does It, -- Prate Of Woman's Rights, Of Woman's Mission, Woman's Function, Till The Men (who Are Prating, Too, On Their Side) Cry, A Woman's Function Plainly Is... To Talk. Poor Souls, They Are Very Reasonably Vexed!

I Would Build A Cloudy House For My Thoughts To Live In; When For Earth Too Fancy-loose And Too Low For Heaven! Hush! I Talk My Dream Aloud - I Build It Bright To See, - I Build It On The Moonlit Cloud, To Which I Looked With Thee.

I Tell You, Hopeless Grief Is Passionless.

A Great Man Leaves Clean Work Behind Him, And Requires No Sweeper Up Of The Chips.

I Cannot Speak In Happy Tones; The Tear Drops On My Cheek Show I Am Sad; But I Can Speak Of Grace To Suffer With Submission Meek, Until Made Glad.

The Critics Could Never Mortify Me Out Of Heart - Because I Love Poetry For Its Own Sake, - And, Tho' With No Stoicism And Some Ambition, Care More For My Poems Than For My Poetic Reputation.

We Have Hearts Within, Warm, Live, Improvident, Indecent Hearts.

For 'tis Not In Mere Death That Men Die Most.

As The Moths Around A Taper, As The Bees Around A Rose, As The Gnats Around A Vapour, So The Spirits Group And Close Round About A Holy Childhood, As If Drinking Its Repose.

Neither Love Me For Thine Own Dear Pity's Wiping My Cheeks Dry, A Creature Might Forget To Weep, Who Bore Thy Comfort Long, And Lose Thy Love, Thereby! But Love Me For Love's Sake, That Evermore Thou Mayst Love On, Through Love's Eternity.

My Future Will Not Copy My Fair Past, I Wrote That Once. And, Thinking At My Side My Ministering Life-angel Justified The Word By His Appealing Look Upcast To The White Throne Of God.

Whoso Loves, Believes In The Impossible

That Headlong Ivy! Not A Leaf Will Grow But Thinking Of A Wreath, . . . I Like Such Ivy; Bold To Leap A Height 'twas Strong To Climb! As Good To Grow On Graves As Twist About A Thyrsus; Pretty Too (and That's Not Ill) When Twisted Round A Comb.

Foolishness And Criticism Are So Apt, Do So Naturally Go Together!

A Woman's Always Younger Than A Man At Equal Years.

Unless You Can Feel When The Song Is Done No Other Is Sweet In Its Rhythm; Unless You Can Feel When Left By One That All Men Else Go With Him.

But Love Me For Love's Sake, That Evermore Thou May'st Love On, Through Love's Eternity.

Friendship Love

The Essence Of All Beauty, I Call Love.

Essence Of Beauty

And Chaucer, With His Infantine Familiar Clasp Of Things Divine.

In This Abundant Earth No Doubt Is Little Room For Things Worn Out: Disdain Them, Break Them, Throw Them By! And If Before The Days Grew Rough We Once Were Lov'd, Us'd -- Well Enough, I Think, We've Far'd, My Heart And I.

The Devil's Most Devilish When Respectable.

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.

Folded Eyes See Brighter Colors Than The Open Ever Do.

Of Writing Many Books There Is No End; And I Who Have Written Much In Prose And Verse For Others' Uses, Will Write Now For Mine,- Will Write My Story For My Better Self, As When You Paint Your Portrait For A Friend, Who Keeps It In A Drawer And Looks At It Long After He Has Ceased To Love You, Just To Hold Together What He Was And Is.

I Work With Patience, Which Is Almost Power.

God's Gifts Put Man's Best Dreams To Shame.

Large, Musing Eyes, Neither Joyous Nor Sorry.

Earth's Crammed With Heaven.

With What Cracked Pitchers Go We To Deep Wells In This World!

If You Desire Faith, Then You Have Faith Enough.

Children Use The Fist Until They Are Of Age To Use The Brain.

The Man, Most Man, Works Best For Men, And, If Most Men Indeed, He Gets His Manhood Plainest From His Soul: While, Obviously, This Stringent Soul Itself Obeys Our Old Rules Of Development; The Spirit Ever Witnessing In Ours, And Love, The Soul Of Soul, Within The Soul, Evolving It Sublimely.

Why, What Is To Live? Not To Eat And Drink And Breathe,—but To Feel The Life In You Down All The Fibres Of Being, Passionately And Joyfully.

I, Who Thought To Sink, Was Caught Up Into Love, And Taught The Whole Of Life In A New Rhythm.

Very Whitely Still The Lilies Of Our Lives May Reassure Their Blossoms From Their Roots, Accessible Alone To Heavenly Dews That Drop Not Fewer; Growing Straight Out Of Man's Reach, On The Hill. God Only, Who Made Us Rich, Can Make Us Poor.

Books, Books, Books! I Had Found The Secret Of A Garret Room Piled High With Cases In My Father’s Name; Piled High, Packed Large,--where, Creeping In And Out Among The Giant Fossils Of My Past, Like Some Small Nimble Mouse Between The Ribs Of A Mastodon, I Nibbled Here And There At This Or That Box, Pulling Through The Gap, In Heats Of Terror, Haste, Victorious Joy, The First Book First. And How I Felt It Beat Under My Pillow, In The Morning’s Dark, An Hour Before The Sun Would Let Me Read! My Books!

The Charm, One Might Say The Genius, Of Memory Is That It Is Choosy, Chancy And Temperamental.

For Frequent Tears Have Run; The Colours From My Life.

Oh, The Little Birds Sang East, And The Little Birds Sang West.

I Should Not Dare To Call My Soul My Own.

Much Of The Possibility Of Being Cheerful Comes From The Faculty Of Throwing Oneself Beyond Oneself.

And Lips Say “god Be Pitiful,” Who Ne'er Said “god Be Praised.”

God Himself Is The Best Poet, And The Real Is His Song.

They Say That God Lives Very High! But If You Look Above The Pines You Cannot See Our God. And Why? And If You Dig Down In The Mines You Never See Him In The Gold, Though From Him All That's Glory Shines. God Is So Good, He Wears A Fold Of Heaven And Earth Across His Face - Like Secrets Kept, For Love, Untold. But Still I Feel That His Embrace Slides Down By Thrills, Through All Things Made, Through Sight And Sound Of Every Place: As If My Tender Brother Laid On My Shut Lids, Her Kisses' Pressure, Half Waking Me At Night; And Said, "who Kissed Through The Dark, Dear Guesser?"

God Only, Who Made Us Rich, Can Make Us Poor.

Definition Of Love: A Score Of Zero In Tennis. I Love Thee With The Breath, Smiles, Tears Of All My Life.

O Pusillanimous Heart, Be Comforted And, Like A Cheerful Traveller, Take The Road Singing Beside The Hedge.

Our Euripides The Human, With His Droppings Of Warm Tears, And His Touchings Of Things Common Till They Rose To Meet The Spheres.

Get Leave To Work In This World,--'tis The Best You Get At All.

True Knowledge Comes Only Through Suffering.

Of Writing Many Books There Is No End.

Love Me Sweet With All Thou Art Feeling, Thinking, Seeing; Love Me In The Lightest Part, Love Me In Full Being.

Thank God For Grace, Ye Who Weep Only! If, As Some Have Done, Ye Grope Tear-blinded In A Desert Place And Touch But Tombs,--look Up! Those Tears Will Run Soon In Long Rivers Down The Lifted Face, And Leave The Vision Clear For Stars And Sun.

I Wish I Were The Lily's Leaf To Fade Upon That Bosom Warm, Content To Wither, Pale And Brief, The Trophy Of Thy Paler Form.

The Holy Night We Sate Among The Stalls At Bethlehem; The Dumb Kine From Their Fodder Turning Them, Softened Their Horned Faces To Almost Human Gazes Toward The Newly Born: The Simple Shepherds From The Star-lit Brooks Brought Visionary Looks, As Yet In Their Astonied Hearing Rung The Strange Sweet Angel-tongue: The Magi Of The East, In Sandals Worn, Knelt Reverent, Sweeping Round, With Long Pale Beards, Their Gifts Upon The Ground, The Incense, Myrrh, And Gold These Baby Hands Were Impotent To Hold: So Let All Earthlies And Celestials Wait Upon Thy Royal State. Sleep, Sleep, My Kingly One!

And Wilt Thou Have Me Fashion Into Speech The Love I Bear Thee, Finding Words Enough, And Hold The Torch Out, While The Winds Are Rough, Between Our Faces, To Cast Light On Each? - I Dropt It At Thy Feet. I Cannot Teach My Hand To Hold My Spirits So Far Off From Myself--me--that I Should Bring Thee Proof In Words, Of Love Hid In Me Out Of Reach. Nay, Let The Silence Of My Womanhood Commend My Woman-love To Thy Belief, - Seeing That I Stand Unwon, However Wooed, And Rend The Garment Of My Life, In Brief, By A Most Dauntless, Voiceless Fortitude, Lest One Touch Of This Heart Convey Its Grief.

Every Wish Is Like A Prayer--with God.

Every Age, Through Being Beheld Too Close, Is Ill-discerned By Those Who Have Not Lived Past It.

An Ignorance Of Means May Minister To Greatness, But An Ignorance Of Aims Make It Impossible To Be Great At All.

Souls Are Dangerous Things To Carry Straight Through All The Spilt Saltpetre Of This World.

We Get No Good By Being Ungenerous, Even To A Book, And Calculating Profits--so Much Help By So Much Reading. It Is Rather When We Gloriously Forget Ourselves, And Plunge Soul-forward, Headlong, Into A Book's Profound, Impassioned For Its Beauty, And Salt Of Truth-- 'tis Then We Get The Right Good From A Book.

There's Nothing Great Nor Small, Has Said A Poet Of Our Day, Whose Voice Will Ring Beyond The Curfew Of Eve And Not Be Thrown Out By The Matin's Bell.

His Ears Were Often The First Thing To Catch My Tears.

And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben, Whose Fire-hearts Sowed Our Furrows When The World Was Worthy Of Such Men.

"there Is No God," The Foolish Saith, But None, "there Is No Sorrow." And Nature Oft The Cry Of Faith In Bitter Need Will Borrow: Eyes Which The Preacher Could Not School, By Wayside Graves Are Raised; And Lips Say, "god Be Pitiful," Who Ne'er Said, "god Be Praised."

And I Smiled To Think God's Greatness Flowed Around Our Incompleteness; Round Our Restlessness, His Rest.

Let Us Be Content To Work To Do The Things We Can, And Not Presume To Fret Because It's Little.

Behold Me! I Am Worthy Of Thy Loving, For I Love Thee!

Eyes Of Gentianellas Azure, Staring, Winking At The Skies.

A Good Neighbor Sometimes Cuts Your Morning Up To Mince-meat Of The Very Smallest Talk, Then Helps To Sugar Her Bohea At Night With Your Reputation.

The Exchange Of Sympathy For Gratitude Is The Most Princely Thing!

O, Brothers! Let Us Leave The Shame And Sin Of Taking Vainly In A Plaintive Mood, The Holy Name Of Grief--holy Herein, That, By The Grief Of One, Came All Our Good.

The Charm, One Might Say The Genius, Of Memory Is That It Is Choosy, Chancy And Temperamental; It Rejects The Edifying Cathedral And Indelibly Photographs The Small Boy Outside, Chewing A Hunk Of Melon In The Dust.

My Patience Has Dreadful Chilblains From Standing So Long On A Monument.

World's Use Is Cold, World's Love Is Vain, World's Cruelty Is Bitter Bane; But Is Not The Fruit Of Pain.

If We Tried To Sink The Past Beneath Our Feet, Be Sure The Future Would Not Stand.

I Remember, When I Was A Child And Wrote Poems In Little Clasped Books, I Used To Kiss The Books And Put Them Away Tenderly Because I Had Been Happy Near Them, And Take Them Out By Turns When I Was Going From Home, To Cheer Them By The Change Of Air And The Pleasure Of The New Place. This, Not For The Sake Of The Verses Written In Them, And Not For The Sake Of Writing More Verses In Them, But From Pure Gratitude.

Pray, Pray, Thou Who Also Weepest,-- And The Drops Will Slacken So; Weep, Weep--and The Watch Thou Keepest, With A Quicker Count Will Go. Think,--the Shadow On The Dial For The Nature Most Undone, Marks The Passing Of The Trial, Proves The Presence Of The Sun.

Capacity For Joy Admits Temptation.

Girls Blush, Sometimes, Because They Are Alive, Half Wishing They Were Dead To Save The Shame. The Sudden Blush Devours Them, Neck And Brow; They Have Drawn Too Near The Fire Of Life, Like Gnats, And Flare Up Bodily, Wings And All. What Then? Who's Sorry For A Gnat Or Girl?

The Great Chasm Between The Thing I Say, And The Thing I Would Say, Would Be Quite Dispiriting To Me, In Spite Even Of Such Kindnesses As Yours, If The Desire Did Not Master The Despondency.

I Heard An Angel Speak Last Night/and He Said, "write!"

O Brave Poets, Keep Back Nothing; Nor Mix Falsehood With The Whole! Look Up Godward! Speak The Truth In Worthy Song From Earnest Soul! Hold, In High Poetic Duty, Truest Truth The Fairest Beauty.

The Flower-girl's Prayer To Buy Roses And Pinks, Held Out In The Smoke, Like Stars By Day.

What We Call Life Is A Condition Of The Soul. And The Soul Must Improve In Happiness And Wisdom, Except By Its Own Fault. These Tears In Our Eyes, These Faintings Of The Flesh, Will Not Hinder Such Improvement.

I Would Confide To You Perhaps My Secret Profession Of Faith - Which Is ... Which Is ... That Let Us Say And Do What We Please And Can ... There Is A Natural Inferiority Of Mind In Women - Of The Intellect ... Not By Any Means, Of The Moral Nature - And That The History Of Art And Of Genius Testifies To This Fact Openly.

Pan Is Dead! Great Pan Is Dead! Pan, Pan Is Dead!

Like To Write? Of Course, Of Course I Do. I Seem To Live While I Write - It Is Life, For Me.

For Me, My Heart, That Erst Did Go Most Like A Tired Child At A Show, That Sees Through Tears The Mummers Leap, Would Now Its Wearied Vision Close, Would Childlike On His Love Repose, Who Giveth His Beloved, Sleep.

Whoever Lives True Life, Will Love True Love.

And If God Choose I Shall But Love Thee Better After Death.

Think, In Mounting Higher, The Angels Would Press On Us, And Aspire To Drop Some Golden Orb Of Perfect Song Into Our Deep, Dear Silence.

First Time He Kissed Me, He But Only Kissed The Fingers Of This Hand Wherewith I Write; And, Ever Since, It Grew More Clean And White.

No Man Can Be Called Friendless Who Has God And The Companionship Of Good Books.

Funny Friendship

Get Work, Get Work; Be Sure 'tis Better Than What You Work To Get.

Enough! We're Tired, My Heart And I. We Sit Beside The Headstone Thus, And Wish That Name Were Carved For Us. The Moss Reprints More Tenderly The Hard Types Of The Mason's Knife, As Heaven's Sweet Life Renews Earth's Life With Which We're Tired, My Heart And I .... In This Abundant Earth No Doubt Is Little Room For Things Worn Out: Disdain Them, Break Them, Throw Them By! And If Before The Days Grew Rough We Once Were Loved, Used, - Well Enough, I Think, We've Fared, My Heart And I.

With Stammering Lips And Insufficient Sound I Strive And Struggle To Deliver Right The Music Of My Nature.

Life, Struck Sharp On Death, Makes Awful Lightning.

I Love Thee To The Depth And Breadth And Height My Soul Can Reach.

Truth Outlives Pain, As The Soul Does Life.

And That Dismal Cry Rose Slowly And Sank Slowly Through The Air, Full Of Spirit's Melancholy And Eternity's Despair; And They Heard The Words It Said,- "pan Is Dead! Great Pan Is Dead! Pan, Pan Is Dead!"

O Earth, So Full Of Dreary Noises! O Men, With Wailing In Your Voices! O Delved Gold, The Wader's Heap! O Strife, O Curse, That O'er It Fall! God Makes A Silence Through You All, And "giveth His Beloved, Sleep.

O Death, O Beyond, Thou Art Sweet, Thou Art Strange!

The Least Flower, With Brimming Cup, May Stand And Share Its Dew Drop With Another Near.

And There My Little Doves Did Sit With Feathers Softly Brown And Glittering Eyes That Showed Their Right To General Nature's Deep Delight.

Sleep On, Baby, On The Floor, Tired Of All The Playing, Sleep With Smile The Sweeter For That You Dropped Away In! On Your Curls' Full Roundness Stand Golden Lights Serenely-- One Cheek, Pushed Out By The Hand, Folds The Dimple Inly.

And I Must Bear What Is Ordained With Patience, Being Aware Necessity Doth Front The Universe With An Invincible Gesture.

Books Succeed; And Lives Fail.

Books Are Men Of Higher Stature.

She Has Seen The Mystery Hid Under Egypt's Pyramid: By Those Eyelids Pale And Close Now She Knows What Rhamses Knows.

The World's Male Chivalry Has Perished Out, But Women Are Knights-errant To The Last; And, If Cervantes Had Been Greater Still, He Had Made His Don A Donna.

You Believe In God, For Your Part?--that He Who Makes Can Make Good Things From Ill Things, Best From Worst, As Men Plant Tulips Upon Dunghills When They Wish Them Finest.

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