I had a dream, which was not at all a dream.
Yet I did love thee to the last, As ferverently as thou, Who didst not change through all the past, And canst not alter now.
That prose is a verse, and verse is a prose; convincing all, by demonstrating plain – poetic souls delight in prose insane.
I cannot conceive why people will always mix up my own character and opinions with those of the imaginary beings which, as a poet, I have the right and liberty to draw.
In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee.
The lapse of ages changes all things – time, language, the earth, the bounds of the sea, the stars of the sky, and every thing about, around, and underneath man, except man himself.
Man marks the earth with ruin – his control stops with the shore.
Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
My great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity I have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices. I have flattered no ruling powers; I have never concealed a single thought that tempted me.
And gentle winds and waters near, make music to the lonely ear.
Till taught by pain, men know not water’s worth.
What makes a regiment of soldiers a more noble object of view than the same mass of mob? Their arms, their dresses, their banners, and the art and artificial symmetry of their position and movements.
As falls the dew on quenchless sands, blood only serves to wash ambition’s hands.
Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies for those who know thee not.
It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.
Mark! Where his carnage and his conquests cease, He makes a solitude and calls it-peace!
I am ashes where once I was fire...
The light of love, the purity of grace, The mind, the Music breathing from her face, The heart whose softness harmonised the whole – And, oh! that eye was in itself a Soul!
A timid mind is apt to mistake every scratch for a mortal wound.
Despair and Genius are too oft connected.