That famish’d people must be slowly nurst, and fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.
My native land, good night!
My altars are the mountains and the ocean.
Oh, Mirth and Innocence! Oh, Milk and Water! Ye happy mixture of more happy days!
He learned the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery, And how to scale a fortress – or a nunnery.
My slumbers – if I slumber – are not sleep, But a continuance of enduring thought, Which then I can resist not: in my heart There is a vigil, and these eyes but close To look within; and yet I live, and bear The aspect and the form of breathing men.
We are all the fools of time and terror: Days Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live, Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.
As soon seek roses in December, ice in June, Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff Believe a woman or an epitaph Or any other thing that’s false Before you trust in critics.
So much alarmed that she is quite alarming.
I doubt sometimes whether a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me – yet I sometimes long for it.
There’s music in the sighing of a reed; There’s music in the gushing of a rill; There’s music in all things, if men had ears; The earth is but the music of the spheres.
A drop of ink may make a million think.
This is to be mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.
The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains – beautiful! I linger yet with nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man, and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness I learned the language of another world.
What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?
Why do they call me misanthrope? Because They hate me, not I them.
Above or Love, Hope, Hate or Fear, It lives all passionless and pure: An age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years in moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing, O’er all, through all, its thought shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing, Forgetting what it was to die.
And those who saw, it did surprise, Such drops could fall from human eyes.
Letter writing is the only device combining solitude with good company.
Years steal fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; and life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.