Books! tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There’s more of wisdom in it.
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget, Chaste Snow-drop, venturous harbinger of Spring, And pensive monitor of fleeting years!
Great God! I’d rather be a Pagan...
This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
A simple child. That lightly draws its breath. And feels its life in every limb. What should it know of death?
The good die first, and they whose hearts are dry as summer dust, burn to the socket.
Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive But to be young was very heaven.
The eye – it cannot choose but see; we cannot bid the ear be still; our bodies feel, where’er they be, against or with our will.
The earth was all before me. With a heart Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty, I look about; and should the chosen guide Be nothing better than a wandering cloud, I cannot miss my way.
The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this.
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held.
The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose.
A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by One after one; the sound of rain, and bees Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky – I’ve thought of all by turns, and still I lie Sleepless...
My apprehension comes in crowds, I dread the rustling of the grass, The very shadows of the clouds, Have power to shake me as they pass, I question things and do not find, one that will answer to my mind, And all the world appears unkind.
For youthful faults ripe virtues shall atone.
Science appears but what in truth she is, Not as our glory and our absolute boast, But as a succedaneum, and a prop To our infirmity.
There is creation in the eye.
Earth helped him with the cry of blood.
Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man, Could field or grove, could any spot of earth, Show to his eye an image of the pangs Which it hath witnessed,-render back an echo Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!
I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, wherever nature led.