Titles are tinsel, power a corrupter, glorya bubble, and excessive wealth a libel on its possessor.
Rough wind, the moanest loud Grief too sad for song; Wild wind, when sullen cloud Knells all the night long; Sad storm, whose tears are vain, Bare woods, whose branches strain, Deep caves and dreary main, Wail, for the world’s wrong!
Men of England, wherefore plough For the lords who lay you low?
Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found.
Let me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure; Thou wilt never come for pity, Thou wilt come for pleasure; Pity then will cut away Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.
Like a glowworm golden, in a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden its aerial blue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view.
Obedience indeed is only the pitiful and cowardly egotism of him who thinks that he can do something better than reason.
Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, And feeds her grief.
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.
A husband and wife ought to continue united so long as they love each other. Any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their affection would be a most intolerable tyranny, and the most unworthy of toleration.
What! alive, and so bold, O earth?
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.
Peace is in the grave. The grave hides all things beautiful and good. I am a God and cannot find it there, Nor would I seek it; for, though dread revenge, This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.
Man, who wert once a despot and a slave, A dupe and a deceiver! a decay, A traveller from the cradle to the grave Through the dim night of this immortal day.
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.
Thus suicidal selfishness, that blights The fairest feelings of the opening heart, Is destined to decay, whilst from the soil Shall spring all virtue, all delight, all love, And judgment cease to wage unnatural war With passion’s unsubduable array.
What if English toil and blood Was poured forth, even as a flood? It availed, Oh, Liberty, To dim, but not extinguish thee.
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.
Thou art Justice ne’er for gold May thy righteous laws be sold As laws are in England thou Shield’st alike the high and low.