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!
Necessity, thou mother of the world!
Death will come when thou art dead, soon, too soon.
Lie bills and calculations much perplexed, With steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint Traced over them in blue and yellow paint.
Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind; The foul cubs like their parents are.
Oh that simplicity and innocence its own unvalued work so seldom knows!
We know not what we do When we speak words.
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!
Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow claspest the limits of mortality.
Strange thoughts beget strange deeds.
I love all waste and solitary places.
What is Love? It is that powerful attraction towards all that we conceive, or fear, or hope beyond ourselves.
Our Adonais has drunk poisonoh! What deaf and viperous murderer could crown Life’s early cup with such a draught of woe?
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.
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.
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.
I love Love – though he has wings, And like light can flee.
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!
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.
You are now In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. Yet in its depth what treasures!