How is it that you live, and what is it you do?
The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone.
Great men have been among us; hands that penn’d And tongues that utter’d wisdom – better none.
Knowledge and increase of enduring joy From the great Nature that exists in works Of mighty Poets.
In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay Tribute to ease; and, of its joy secure, The heart luxuriates with indifferent things, Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones, And on the vacant air.
When men change swords for ledgers, and desert The student’s bower for gold, some fears unnamed I had, my Country – am I to be blamed?
Wisdom and spirit of the Universe!
Prompt to move but firm to wait – knowing things rashly sought are rarely found.
And I am happy when I sing.
A light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove.
A lawyer art thou? Draw not nigh! Go, carry to some fitter place The keenness of that practised eye, The hardness of that sallow face.
Free as a bird to settle where I will.
In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn’t know what he is doing.
The wealthiest man among us is the best.
Come, blessed barrier between day and day, Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
We murder to dissect.
Poetry has never brought me in enough money to buy shoestrings.
The child shall become father to the man.
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.
Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.