Background Image

...

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.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

You Would Not Easily

Percy Bysshe Shelley

...

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.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

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.

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

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!

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!

That Sweet Sleep Which Medicines All Pain.

To Hearts Which Near Each Other Move From Evening Close To Morning Light,the Night Is Good; Because, My Love,they Never Say Good-night.

The Cloud Shadows Of Midnight Possess Their Own Repose.

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.

Woe Is Me! The Winged Words On Which My Soul Would Pierce Into The Heights Of Love's Rare Universe, Are Chains Of Lead Around Its Flight Of Fire-- I Pant, I Sink, I Tremble, I Expire.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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.

The Intense Atom Glows A Moment, Then Is Quenched In A Most Cold Repose.

Words Are But Holy As The Deeds They Cover.

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

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

You Ought To Love All Mankind; Nay, Every Individual Of Mankind. You Ought Not To Love The Individuals Of Your Domestic Circles Less, But To Love Those Who Exist Beyond It More. Once Make The Feelings Of Confidence And Of Affection Universal, And The Distinctions Of Property And Power Will Vanish; Nor Are They To Be Abolished Without Substituting Something Equivalent In Mischief To Them, Until All Mankind Shall Acknowledge An Entire Community Of Rights.

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

Poetry Is The Record Of The Best And Happiest Moments Of The Happiest And Best Minds.

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

Thy Words Are Like A Cloud Of Winged Snakes.

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?

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

Death Is The Veil Which Those Who Live Call Life; They Sleep, And It Is Lifted.

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

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

Poetry Lifts The Veil From The Hidden Beauty Of The World, And Makes Familiar Objects Be As If They Were Not Familiar.

Can Man Be Free If Woman Be A Slave?

For The Sensitive Plant Has No Bright Flower; Radiance And Odour Are Not Its Dower; It Loves, Even Like Love, Its Deep Heart Is Full, It Desires What It Has Not, The Beautiful.

Familiar Acts Are Beautiful Through Love.

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.

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

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

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

Love's Very Pain Is Sweet

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

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.

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.

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

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

How Wonderful Is Death! Death And His Brother Sleep.

Away, Away, From Men And Towns, To The Wild Wood And The Downs, - To The Silent Wilderness, Where The Soul Need Not Repress Its Music.

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

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

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.

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.

Poets Are The Unacknowledged Legislators Of The World.

[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.

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

The Cemetery Is An Open Space Among The Ruins, Covered In Winter With Violets And Daisies. It Might Make One In Love With Death, To Think That One Should Be Buried In So Sweet A Place.

Love's Pestilence, And Her Slow Dogs Of War.

Hail To Thee, Blithe Spirit!

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

Christianity Indeed Has Equaled Judaism In The Atrocities, And Exceeded It In The Extent Of Its Desolation. Eleven Millions Of Men, Women, And Children Have Been Killed In Battle, Butchered In Their Sleep, Burned To Death At Public Festivals Of Sacrifice, Poisoned, Tortured, Assassinated, And Pillaged In The Spirit Of The Religion Of Peace, And For The Glory Of The Most Merciful God.

Life May Change, But It May Fly Not; Hope May Vanish, But Can Die Not; Truth Be Veiled, But Still It Burneth; Love Repulsed, - But It Returneth!

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

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.

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.

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

He Hath Awakened From The Dream Of Life.

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

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.

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

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

Spirit Of Beauty, That Dost Consecrate With Thine Own Hues All Thou Dost Shine Upon Of Human Thought Or Form, Where Art Thou Gone? Why Dost Thou Pass Away And Leave Our State, This Dim Vast Vale Of Tears, Vacant And Desolate? Ask Why The Sunlight Not For Ever Weaves Rainbows O'er Yon Mountain-river, Why Aught Should Fail And Fade That Once Is Shown, Why Fear And Dream And Death And Birth Cast On The Daylight Of This Earth Such Gloom, Why Man Has Such A Scope For Love And Hate, Despondency And Hope?

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

The Great Secret Of Morals Is Love; Or A Going Out Of Our Nature, And An Identification Of Ourselves With The Beautiful Which Exists In Thought, Action, Or Person, Not Our Own. A Man, To Be Greatly Good, Must Imagine Intensely And Comprehensively; He Must Put Himself In The Place Of Another And Of Many Others; The Pains And Pleasure Of His Species Must Become His Own. The Great Instrument Of Moral Good Is The Imagination.

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

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

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

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

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.

Joy, Once Lost, Is Pain

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

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 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.

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

The Practice Of Utter Sincerity Towards Other Men Would Avail To No Good End, If They Were Incapable Of Practising It Towards Their Own Minds. In Fact, Truth Cannot Be Communicated Until It Is Perceived.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Mild Is The Slow Necessity Of Death; The Tranquil Spirit Fails Beneath Its Grasp, Without A Groan, Almost Without A Fear, Resigned In Peace To The Necessity; Calm As A Voyager To Some Distant Land, And Full Of Wonder, Full Of Hope As He.

Man Who Man Would Be, Must Rule The Empire Of Himself.

I Love All Waste And Solitary Places.

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.

The Crime Of Inquiry Is One Which Religion Never Has Forgiven.

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.

I Fall Upon The Thorns Of Life.

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.'

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

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

O Heart, And Mind, And Thoughts! What Thing Do You Hope To Inherit In The Grave Below?

Love's Very Pain Is Sweet, But Its Reward Is In The World Divine Which, If Not Here, It Builds Beyond The Grave.

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

Power, Like A Desolating Pestilence, Pollutes Whate'er It Touches; And Obedience, Bane Of All Genius, Virtue, Freedom, Truth, Makes Slaves Of Men, And Of The Human Frame A Mechanized Automaton.

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

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!

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

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.

A System Could Not Well Have Been Devised More Studiously Hostile To Human Happiness Than Marriage.

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.

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

Poetry Love's Philosophy The Fountains Mingle With The River And The Rivers With The Ocean, The Winds Of Heaven Mix For Ever With A Sweet Emotion; Nothing In The World Is Single, All Things By A Law Divine In One Another's Being Mingle— Why Not I With Thine? See The Mountains Kiss High Heaven, And The Waves Clasp One Another; No Sister-flower Would Be Forgiven If It Disdain'd Its Brother; And The Sunlight Clasps The Earth, And The Moonbeams Kiss The Sea— What Are All These Kissings Worth, If Thou Kiss Not Me?

Then Black Despair, The Shadow Of A Starless Night, Was Thrown Over The World In Which I Moved Alone.

I Love Tranquil Solitude.

Songs Consecrate To Truth And Liberty.

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!

War Is The Statesman's Game, The Priest's Delight, The Lawyer's Jest, The Hired Assassin's Trade.

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

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

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

The Howl Of Self-interest Is Loud ... But The Heart Is Black Which Throbs Solely To Its Note.

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.

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

Through The Sunset Of Hope, Like The Shapes Of A Dream, What Paradise Islands Of Glory Gleam!

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.

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.

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.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, And Endurance, These Are The Seals Of That Most Firm Assurance Which Bars The Pit Over Destruction's Strength; And If, With Infirm Hand, Eternity, Mother Of Many Acts And Hours, Should Free The Serpent That Would Clasp Her With His Length; These Are The Spells By Which To Reassume An Empire O'er The Disentangled Doom.

Oh Lift Me As A Wave, A Leaf, A Cloud! I Fall Upon The Thorns Of Life! I Bleed!

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!

The Most Refined Abstractions Of Logic Conduct To A View Of Life, Which, Though Startling To The Apprehension, Is, In Fact, That Which The Habitual Sense Of Its Repeated Combinations Has Extinguished In Us. It Strips, As It Were, The Painted Curtain From This Scene Of Things. I Confess That I Am One Of Those Who Are Unable To Refuse My Assent To The Conclusions Of Those Philosophers Who Assert That Nothing Exists But As It Is Perceived.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

I Am The Daughter Of Earth And Water, And The Nursling Of The Sky; I Pass Through The Pores Of The Ocean And Shores; I Change, But I Cannot Die. For After The Rain When With Never A Stain The Pavilion Of Heaven Is Bare, And The Winds And Sunbeams With Their Convex Gleams Build Up The Blue Dome Of Air, I Silently Laugh At My Own Cenotaph, And Out Of The Caverns Of Rain, Like A Child From The Womb, Like A Ghost From The Tomb, I Arise And Unbuild It Again.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

All Love Is Sweet, Given Or Received.

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

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.

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!

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.

Most Wretched Men Are Cradled Into Poetry By Wrong: They Learn In Suffering What They Teach In Song.

Thou Shoreless Flood, Which In Thy Ebb And Flow Claspest The Limits Of Mortality.

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.

My Father Time Is Weak And Gray With Waiting For A Better Day; See How Idiot-like He Stands, Fumbling With His Palsied Hands!

The Quick Dreams, The Passion-winged Ministers Of Thought.

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.

No More Let Life Divide What Death Can Join Together.

The Soul's Joy Lies In Doing.

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.

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

The Galilean Is Not A Favorite Of Mine. So Far From Owing Him Any Thanks For His Favor, I Cannot Avoid Confessing That I Owe A Secret Grudge To His Carpentership.

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.

Cold Hopes Swarm Like Worms Within Our Living Clay.

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

Duty And Dereliction Guide Thee Back To Solitude.

Many A Green Isle Needs Must Be In The Deep Wide Sea Of Misery, Or The Mariner, Worn And Wan, Never Thus Could Voyage On.

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

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

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.

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

A Man, To Be Greatly Good, Must Imagine Intensely And Comprehensively; He Must Put Himself In The Place Of Another And Of Many Others; The Pains And Pleasures Of His Species Must Become His Own.

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

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

There Is Eloquence In The Tongueless Wind, And A Melody In The Flowing Brooks And The Rustling Of The Reeds Beside Them, Which By Their Inconceivable Relation To Something Within The Soul, Awaken The Spirits To A Dance Of Breathless Rapture, And Bring Tears Of Mysterious Tenderness To The Eyes, Like The Enthusiasm Of Patriotic Success, Or The Voice Of One Beloved Singing To You Alone.

I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy.

Whatever Strengthens And Purifies The Affections, Enlarges The Imagination, And Adds Spirit To Sense, Is Useful.

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.

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

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.

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

Necessity, Thou Mother Of The World!

I Consider Poetry Very Subordinate To Moral And Political Science.

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.

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.

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.

Strange Thoughts Beget Strange Deeds.

Of Planets, Struggling Fierce Towards Heaven's Free Wilderness.

When You Can Discover Where The Fresh Colors Of The Faded Flower Abide, Or The Music Of The Broken Lyre, Seek Life Among The Dead. Such Are The Anxious And Fearful Contemplations Of The Common Observer, Though The Popular Religion Often Prevents Him From Confessing Them Even To Himself.

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.

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

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.

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

Forget The Dead, The Past? O Yet There Are Ghosts That May Take Revenge For It, Memories That Make The Heart A Tomb, Regrets Which Gild Thro’ The Spirit’s Gloom, And With Ghastly Whispers Tell That Joy, Once Lost, Is Pain.

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.

I Am Not Much Of A Hand At Love Songs, You See I Mingle Metaphysics With Even This, But Perhaps In This Age Of Philosophy That May Be Excused.

Peace, Peace! He Is Not Dead, He Doth Not Sleep - He Hath Awakened From The Dream Of Life - 'tis We, Who Lost In Stormy Visions, Keep With Phantoms An Unprofitable Strife.

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.

Nought May Endure But Mutability.

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

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 It's Own Wreck The Thing It Contemplates; Neither To Change, Not 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

Trending Author

Eden Phillpotts

Category