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

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

Understanding the Quote: "when the lamp is shattered the light in the dust lies dead..."

This quote by Percy Bysshe Shelley reflects deeply on the theme of lying. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Lying, Clouds, Light, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Percy Bysshe Shelley interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley is celebrated for insightful thoughts on lying and clouds. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 8685
Topic
Lying
Clouds
Light
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Mankind, Transmitting From Generation To Generation The Legacy Of Accumulated Vengeances, And Pursuing With The Feelings Of Duty The Misery Of Their Fellow-beings, Have Not Failed To Attribute To The Universal Cause A Character Analogous With Their Own. The Image Of This Invisible, Mysterious Being Is More Or Less Excellent And Perfect — Resembles More Or Less Its Original — In Proportion To The Perfection Of The Mind On Which It Is Impressed.
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As Belief Is A Passion Of The Mind, No Degree Of Criminality Is Attachable To Disbelief.
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Thou Who Didst Waken From His Summer Dreams The Blue Mediterranean, Where He Lay, Lull'd By The Coil Of His Crystalline Streams Beside A Pumice Isle In Baiæ's Bay, And Saw In Sleep Old Palaces And Towers Quivering Within The Wave's Intenser Day, All Overgrown With Azure Moss And Flowers So Sweet, The Sense Faints Picturing Them.
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Government Has No Rights; It Is A Delegation From Several Individuals For The Purpose Of Securing Their Own. It Is Therefore Just, Only So Far As It Exists By Their Consent, Useful Only So Far As It Operates To Their Well-being.
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When A Thing Is Said To Be Not Worth Refuting You May Be Sure That Either It Is Flagrantly Stupid - In Which Case All Comment Is Superfluous - Or It Is Something Formidable, The Very Crux Of The Problem.
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Death Is The Veil Which Those Who Live Call Life; They Sleep, And It Is Lifted.
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Whence Are We, And Why Are We? Of What Scene The Actors Or Spectators?
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Every Fanatic Or Enemy Of Virtue Is Not At Liberty To Misrepresent The Greatest Geniuses And Most Heroic Defenders Of All That Is Valuable In This Mortal World.
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The Howl Of Self-interest Is Loud ... But The Heart Is Black Which Throbs Solely To Its Note.
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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.
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This Lake Exceeds Anything I Ever Beheld In Beauty.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I Fall Upon The Thorns Of Life.
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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.
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Death Will Come When Thou Art Dead, Soon, Too Soon.
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Poetry Strengthens That Faculty Which Is The Organ Of The Moral Nature Of Man, In The Same Manner As Exercise Strengthens A Limb.
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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.
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I Love All Waste And Solitary Places.
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Of Planets, Struggling Fierce Towards Heaven's Free Wilderness.
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Sometimes It's Better To Put Love Into Hugs Than To Put It Into Words. Soul Meets Soul On Lovers' Lips.
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One Word Is Too Often Profaned For Me To Profane It, One Feeling Too Falsely Disdained For Thee To Disdain It.
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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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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.
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The Young Moon Has Fed Her Exhausted Horn With The Sunset's Fire.
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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.
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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.
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A Lovely Lady, Garmented In Light From Her Own Beauty.
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Just A Tender Sense Of My Own Process, That Holds Something Of My Connection With The Divine.
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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.
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If God Has Spoken, Why Is The World Not Convinced.
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I Bring Fresh Showers For The Thirsting Flowers, From The Seas And The Streams; I Bear Light Shade For The Leaves When Laid In Their Noonday Dreams. From My Wings Are Shaken The Dews That Waken The Sweet Buds Every One, When Rocked To Rest On Their Mother's Breast, As She Dances About The Sun. 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.
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Teas, Where Small Talk Dies In Agonies.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Oh, That The Wise From Their Bright Minds Would Kindle Such Lamps Within The Dome Of This Dim World That The Pale Name Of Priest Might Shrink And Dwindle Into The Hell From Which It First Was Furled.
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Underneath Day's Azure Eyes, Ocean's Nursling, Venice Lies, A Peopled Labyrinth Of Walls, Amphitrite's Destined Halls
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The Babe Is At Peace Within The Womb, The Corpse Is At Rest Within The Tomb. We Begin In What We End.
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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.
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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.
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Lightning My Pilot Sits; In A Cavern Under Is Fettered The Thunder, It Struggles And Howls At Fits; Over Earth And Ocean, With Gentle Motion, This Pilot Is Guiding Me, Lured By The Love Of The Genii That Move In The Depths Of The Purple Sea; Over The Rills, And The Crags, And The Hills, Over The Lakes And The Plains, Wherever He Dream, Under Mountain Or Stream The Spirit He Loves Remains; And I All The While Bask In Heaven's Blue Smile, Whilst He Is Dissolving In Rains.
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What Is Life? Thoughts And Feelings Arise, With Or Without Our Will, And We Employ Words To Express Them. We Are Born, And Our Birth Is Unremembered And Our Infancy Remembered But In Fragments. We Live On, And In Living We Lose The Apprehension Of Life. How Vain Is It To Think That Words Can Penetrate The Mystery Of Our Being. Rightly Used They May Make Evident Our Ignorance Of Ourselves, And This Is Much.
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I Bring Fresh Showers For The Thirsting Flowers, From The Seas And The Streams; I Bear Light Shade For The Leaves When Laid In Their Noonday Dreams.
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O, Wind, If Winter Comes, Can Spring Be Far Behind?
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Let The Blue Sky Overhead, The Green Earth On Which Ye Tread, All That Must Eternal Be Witness The Solemnity.
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Sometimes The Devil Is A Gentleman.
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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?
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When Merciless Ambition, Or Mad Zeal, Has Led Two Hosts Of Dupes To Battlefield, That, Blind, They There May Dig Each Other's Graves, And Call The Sad Work Glory.
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Whatever Strengthens And Purifies The Affections, Enlarges The Imagination, And Adds Spirit To Sense, Is Useful.
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Poetry Is A Mirror Which Makes Beautiful That Which Is Distorted.
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It Is Among Men Of Genius And Science That Atheism Alone Is Found.
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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.
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Alas! I Have Nor Hope Nor Health, Nor Peace Within Nor Calm Around, Nor That Content Surpassing Wealth The Sage In Meditation Found.
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One Word Is Too Often Profaned For Me To Profane It, One Feeling Too Falsely Disdain'd For Thee To Disdain It. One Hope Too Like Dispair For Prudence To Smother, I Can Give Not What Men Call Love: But Wilt Thou Accept Not The Worship The Heart Lifts Above And Heaven Rejects Not: The Desire Of The Moth For The Star, The Devotion Of Something Afar From The Sphere Of Our Sorrow?
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The Sunlight Claps The Earth, And The Moonbeams Kiss The Sea: What Are All These Kissings Worth, If Thou Kiss Not Me?
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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.
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Sing Again, With Your Dear Voice Revealing. A Tone Of Some World Far From Ours, Where Music And Moonlight And Feeling Are One.
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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.
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It Is Vain Philosophy That Supposes More Causes Than Are Exactly Adequate To Explain The Phenomena Of Things.
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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!
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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.
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Lie Bills And Calculations Much Perplexed, With Steam-boats, Frigates, And Machinery Quaint Traced Over Them In Blue And Yellow Paint.
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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.
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Narrow The Heart That Loves, The Brain That Contemplates, The Life That Wears, The Spirit That Creates One Object, And One Form, And Builds Thereby A Sepulchre For Its Eternity.
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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.
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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.
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I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy, And I Will Taste No Other Wine Tonight.
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God Is A Hypothesis, And, As Such, Stands In Need Of Proof; The Onus Probandi Rests On The Theist.
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Then Black Despair, The Shadow Of A Starless Night, Was Thrown Over The World In Which I Moved Alone.
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I Love Love -- Though He Has Wings, And Like Light Can Flee.
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Cold Hopes Swarm Like Worms Within Our Living Clay.
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Far Clouds Of Feathery Gold, Shaded With Deepest Purple, Gleam Like Islands On A Dark Blue Sea.
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Titles Are Tinsel, Power A Corrupter, Glorya Bubble, And Excessive Wealth A Libel On Its Possessor.
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Truth Has Always Been Found To Promote The Best Interests Of Mankind.
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I Have Made My Bed In Charnels And On Coffins, Where Black Death Keeps Record Of The Trophies Won
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One Nightingale In An Interfluous Wood Satiate The Hungry Dark With Melody.
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I Have Been A Wanderer Among Distant Fields. I Have Sailed Down Mighty Rivers.
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Fields
That Orbed Maiden, With White Fire Laden, Whom Mortals Call The Moon.
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I Love Tranquil Solitude, And Such Society As Is Quiet, Wise, And Good; Between Thee And Me What Difference? But Thou Dost Possess The Things I Seek, Not Love Them Less.
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Differences
Solitude
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.
Pain
Pulse
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But I Am Chained To Time, And Cannot Thence Depart!
Time
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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.
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Lying
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For This Is The Most Civil Sort Of Lie That Can Be Given To A Man's Face. I Now Say What I Think.
Lying
Men
Thinking
I See The Waves Upon The Shore, Like Light Dissolved In Star-showers, Thrown.
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Wave
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.
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All Love Is Sweet Given Or Returned. Common As Light Is Love, And Its Familiar Voice Wearies Not Ever.
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Jesus Christ Opposed With Earnest Eloquence The Panic Fears And Hateful Superstitions Which Have Enslaved Mankind For Ages.
Jesus
Age
Superstitions
When The Lamp Is Shattered The Light In The Dust Lies Dead - When The Cloud Is Scattered The Rainbow's Glory Is Shed.
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Light
For Love And Beauty And Delight, There Is No Death Nor Change.
Delight
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.
Love
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Individual
Are We Not Formed, As Notes Of Music Are, For One Another, Though Dissimilar?
Music
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Notes Music
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!
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... Virtue Owns A More Eternal Foe Than Force Or Fraud: Old Custom, Legal Crime, And Bloody Faith The Foulest Birth Of Time.
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Worse Than A Bloody Hand Is A Hard Heart.
Heart
Hands
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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.
Love
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Through The Sunset Of Hope, Like The Shapes Of A Dream, What Paradise Islands Of Glory Gleam!
Dream
Hope
Sunset
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!
Book
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Those Who Love Not Their Fellow-beings Live Unfruitful Lives, And Prepare For Their Old Age A Miserable Grave.
Funny
Kindness
Age
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.
Love
Men
Want
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.
Mistake
Novelty
Moral
I Stood Within The City Disinterred; And Heard The Autumnal Leaves Like Light Footfalls Of Spirits Passng Through The Streets; And Heard The Mountain's Slumberous Voice At Intervals Thrill Through Those Roofless Halls; The Oracular Thunder Penetrating Shook The Listening Soul In My Suspended Blood.
Light
Blood
Cities
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.
Sea
Heaven
Mountain
I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy.
Joy
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.
Flower
Shining
Age
Persevere Even Though Hell And Destruction Should Yawn Beneath Your Feet.
Perseverance
Feet
Persevere
Love's Very Pain Is Sweet
Sweet
Pain
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?
Father
Fall
Atheism
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.
Beautiful
Mirrors
Poetry
I Arise From Dreams Of Thee, And A Spirit In My Feet Has Led Me- Who Knows How? To Thy Chamber-window, Sweet!
Dream
Sweet
Feet
My Father Time Is Weak And Gray With Waiting For A Better Day; See How Idiot-like He Stands, Fumbling With His Palsied Hands!
Time
Father
Hands
He Gave Man Speech, And Speech Created Thought, Which Is The Measure Of The Universe.
Men
Speech
Universe
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.
Sleep
Soul
Slumber
There Is No Real Wealth But The Labour Of Man.
Real
Men
Wealth
No More Let Life Divide What Death Can Join Together.
Together
Divides
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.
Moving
Thinking
Imagination
It Is Easier To Suppose That The Universe Has Existed For All Eternity Than To Conceive A Being Beyond Its Limits Capable Of Creating It.
Atheist
Creating
Religion
Obedience Indeed Is Only The Pitiful And Cowardly Egotism Of Him Who Thinks That He Can Do Something Better Than Reason.
Thinking
Reason
Obedience
...ere Midnight’s Frown And Morning’s Smile, Ere Thou And Peace May Meet.
Morning
Midnight
May
Chameleons Feed On Light And Air: Poets Food Is Love And Fame.
Food
Light
Air
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.
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Powerful
Community
Within My Heart Is The Lamp Of Love, And That Is Day!
Heart
Lamps
My Heart
Let There Be Light! Said Liberty , And Like Sunrise From The Sea, Athens Arose!
Light
Sea
Sunrise
Only Nature Knows How To Justly Proportion To The Fault The Punishment It Deserves.
Nature
Punishment
Faults
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
Night
Blue
Years
[l]ike Thee To Those In Sorrow, Comes To Bid A Sweet Good-morrow To The Rough Year Just Awake In Its Cradle On The Brake. The Brightest Hour Of Unborn Spring, Through The Winter Wandering, Found, It Seems, The Halcyon Morn To Hoar February Born.
Sweet
Spring
Winter
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?
Sweet
Brother
Flower
A Poet, As He Is The Author To Others Of The Highest Wisdom, Pleasure, Virtue, And Glory, So He Ought Personally To Be The Happiest, The Best, The Wisest, And The Most Illustrious Of Men.
Men
Poetry
Virtue
I Consider Poetry Very Subordinate To Moral And Political Science.
Poetry
Political
Moral
It Were As Wise To Cast A Violet Into A Crucible That You Might Discover The Formal Principle Of Its Color And Odor, As Seek To Transfuse From One Language Into Another The Creations Of A Poet. The Plant Must Spring Again From Its Seed, Or It Will Bear No Flower -- And This Is The Burthen Of The Curse Of Babel.
Wise
Spring
Flower
Know What It Is To Be A Child? It Is To Be Something Very Different From The Man Of Today. It Is To Have A Spirit Yet Streaming From The Waters Of Baptism; It Is To Believe In Belief; It Is To Be So Little That Elves Can Reach To Whisper In Your Ear; It Is To Turn Pumpkins Into Coaches, And Mice Into Horses, Lowness Into Loftiness, And Nothing Into Everything, For Each Child Had Its Fairy Godmother In Its Soul.
Faith
Horse
Children
His Fine Wit Makes Such A Wound, The Knife Is Lost In It.
Knives
Losing
Lost
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.
Determination
Men
Wind
Fame, Power, And Gold, Are Loved For Their Own Sakes - Are Worshipped With A Blind, Habitual Idolatry.
Gold
Sake
Blind
Most Wretched Men Are Cradled Into Poetry By Wrong: They Learn In Suffering What They Teach In Song.
Song
Learning
Men
I Never Was Attached To That Great Sect, Whose Doctrine Is, That Each One Should Select Out Of The Crowd A Mistress Or A Friend, And All The Rest, Though Fair And Wise, Commend To Cold Oblivion, Though It Is In The Code Of Modern Morals, And The Beaten Road Which Those Poor Slaves With Weary Footsteps Tread, Who Travel To Their Home Among The Dead By The Broad Highway Of The World, And So With One Chained Friend — Perhaps A Jealous Foe, The Dreariest And The Longest Journey Go.
Marriage
Wise
Home
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!
Children
Echoes
Law
Religion Pervades Intensely The Whole Frame Of Society, And Is According To The Temper Of The Mind Which It Inhabits, A Passion, A Persuasion, An Excuse, A Refuge; Never A Check.
Passion
Mind
Religion
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.
Summer
Autumn
Past
Man Who Man Would Be, Must Rule The Empire Of Himself.
Men
Would Be
Empires
Thou Shoreless Flood, Which In Thy Ebb And Flow Claspest The Limits Of Mortality.
Time
Ebb And Flow
Limits
All High Poetry Is Infinite; It Is As The First Acorn, Which Contained All Oaks Potentially.
Poetry
Firsts
Acorns
Nothing Wilts Faster Than Laurels That Have Been Rested Upon.
Action
Laurels
Faster
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.
Ignorance
Simple
Men
A Sensitive Plant In A Garden Grew, And The Young Winds Fed It With Silver Dew, And It Opened Its Fan Like Leaves To The Light, And Closed Them Beneath The Kisses Of Night.
Nature
Sunset
Kissing
I Cannot Endure The Horror, The Evil, Which Comes To Self In Solitude.
Self
Evil
Solitude
I Pant, I Sink, I Tremble, I Expire!
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!
Dream
Sleep
Men
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.
Heaven
Despair
Fortune
He Has Outsoared The Shadow Of Our Night; Envy And Calumny And Hate And Pain, And That Unrest Which Men Miscall Delight, Can Touch Him Not And Torture Not Again; From The Contagion Of The World's Slow Stain, He Is Secure.
Death
Pain
Hate
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.
Beauty
Forever
Secret
The Jealous Keys Of Truth's Eternal Doors.
Truth
Jealous
Keys
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.
Strong
Simple
Shade
And Spring Arose On The Garden Fair, Like The Spirit Of Love Felt Everywhere; And Each Flower And Herb On Earth's Dark Breast Rose From The Dreams Of Its Wintry Rest.
Inspirational
Dream
Nature
The Thoughts Which The Word "god" Suggests To The Human Mind Are Susceptible Of As Many Variations As Human Minds Themselves.
Mind
Variation
Humans
And Many More Destructions Played In This Ghastly Masquerade, All Disguised, Even To The Eyes, Like Bishops, Lawyers, Peers, Or Spies.
Eye
Spy
Bishops
Music, When Soft Voices Die, Vibrates In The Memory; Odours, When Sweet Violets Sicken, Live Within The Sense They Quicken. Rose Leaves, When The Rose Is Dead, Are Heap'd For The Belovèd's Bed; And So Thy Thoughts, When Thou Art Gone, Love Itself Shall Slumber On.
Love
Sweet
Art
It Is Found Easier, By The Short-sighted Victims Of Disease, To Palliate Their Torments By Medicine, Than To Prevent Them By Regimen
Medicine
Disease
Vegan
Our Sweetest Songs Are Those That Tell Of Saddest Thought.
Sad
Song
Musical
The Crime Of Inquiry Is One Which Religion Never Has Forgiven.
Inquiry
Crime
Forgiven
Love! Dearest, Sweetest Power! How Much Are We Indebted To Thee! How Much Superior Are Even Thy Miseries To The Pleasures Which Arise From Other Sources!
Love
Misery
Pleasure
Power, Like A Desolating Pestilence, Pollutes Whatever It Touches.
Power
Pestilence
But Hope Will Make Thee Young, For Hope And Youth Are Children Of One Mother, Even Love.
Mother
Hope
Children
I Am Convinced That There Can Be No Regeneration Of Mankind Until Laughter Is Put Down.
Laughter
Mankind
Regeneration
... 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
Eye
Kissing
Romantic Love
Life, Like A Dome Of Many-coloured Glass, Stains The White Radiance Of Eternity.
Inspirational
Life
Time
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?
Spring
Winter
Wind
The Great Instrument Of Moral Good Is The Imagination.
Imagination
Moral
Instruments
By All That Is Sacred In Our Hope For The Human Race, I Conjure Those Who Love Happiness And Truth To Give A Fair Trial To The Vegetable System!
Race
Vegetarianism
Vegetables
How Beautiful Is Sunset When The Glow Of Heaven Descends Upon A Land Like Thee, Thou Paradise Of Exiles, Italy!
Beautiful
Sunset
Land
A Single Word Even May Be A Spark Of Inextinguishable Thought
May
Sparks
Single Word
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.
Guilt
Atheism
Modesty
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.
Stars
Blue
Dwelling
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.
Life
Wise
Spring
The Encomium Of One Incapable Of Flattery Is Indeed Flattering.
Flattery
Flattering
Incapable
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.
Dream
Ocean
Mind
I Love Tranquil Solitude And Such Society As Is Quiet, Wise, And Good.
Love
Wise
Solitude
The Soul's Joy Lies In Doing.
Happiness
Laughter
Lying
The Cloud Of Mind Is Discharging Its Collected Lightning.
Clouds
Mind
Lightning
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
Fellow Man
May
He Hath Awakened From The Dream Of Life.
Dream
Memorial
Headstone
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